Let me be there for you
by athenaphoenix17
Summary: After Angell's dead, Flack was never be the same guy the team knew anymore. What if he met with an incredible girl? What if this girl happened to be Stella's bestfriend? A hint of dantana, friendship with Stella. Flack/OC, SMacked, Dantana. R
1. Chapter 1

Note From The Author— After season 5, after Angell death. I hope imagined Flack would need someone to comfort him, and how Stella's life outside the work. I don't know if' I'm doing well or not, but.. read and review please…

Disclaimer—I don't own the characters of CSI: NY, or any plot in CSI series. Like all said, I wish I had…

Chapter 1

Don't seem what it's like

Flack had just finished his shift. Today, he arrested another criminal, thanks to Hawkes and Lindsay who did a great job in processing the evidence. The arrest went smooth, no running or increased in adrenaline level like what he usually had when he forced to point his gun to the culprit. The culprit was already depressed enough, so he decided to make a confession. Sometimes, he was sick with the realization of there were scumbags out there. New York seemed never got less criminals to screw up.

He drove his Explorer slowly over a silent area. He was passing a black SUV when he suddenly aware that the driver was pushed someone who was in passenger seat. He stopped his car to watch carefully. He heard a loud bang, and he heard a muffled sound, he was quite sure that it had nothing to do with something romantic. He got out from his car, walked in a rush to the passenger's side, and saw a red-hair woman was pushed to the window; her mouth seemed covered by the driver's palm. She was desperately tried to push her attacker.

Flack banged the top of the car. "NYPD, get out of your car. Put your hand where I can see them."

The driver ignored him. Flack moved to the driver door. He banged the driver's door this time. He's never like being ignored. "NYPD, get out of your car, or I'll break this door open."

Finally, the driver unlocked his car, when he was about to walk out from his car, the auburn woman opened her door as well and ran toward Flack.

"What's up?" asked the driver. He was actually a good looking guy, he had this smirk on his face which made Flack wanted to punch him on his face. 'What's up' he said. Damn, didn't he realize that he was just doing an assault?

"What did you do to her?" Flack shrugged his shoulder to the woman, now stood behind him.

"We're just playing around, aren't we, honey?"

"No! He's lying. He tried to rape me." The woman answered. For a moment, Flack glanced at the woman. He was taken a back for a moment. This woman, despite she looked pale, looked very attractive, not in sexy way, but… in someway he even didn't know how to describe.

Flack decided to cuff this guy, and forced him to go with him to the police station. Another bastard in New York, he thought. He asked the woman to follow him to the police station to fill in the report. The woman just nodded, she entered the car to take her purse, and slowly followed Flack to his car, sat in passenger's seat as Flack ordered her to do.

***

"Hey, I thought your shift was ended 2 hours ago." said a familiar voice. Flack turned around only to face Stella, who brought several paperworks.

"Yeah, but you know what New York is, I was driving home when I…"

"Minerva?" Stella shouted in shock, not letting Flack finished his sentence.

The auburn woman (or girl? She looked so young) raised her head from the file report she had to fill in.

"Stell? Thanks God, I meet you." She stood up and hugged Stella, who returned the hug.

"What are you doing here? Don't tell me… you've got into trouble?"

The now calm woman gave Stella a weak smile and told her story of almost being raped by her friend. Stella watched in disgust, and forced to meet the guy to give him a punch or two, in which Flack objected to do, caused her more upset.

"It's okay, Stell. I'm alright now. Thanks to Detective Flack. He saved me. I can't never thanked him enough.", She said while smiling at Flack.

Something inside him suddenly felt warm, like he had drunk a hot nice chocolate. He cleared his throat to response her words. Stella hugged her friend again, and then said that she'd drive her home. She just nodded and finished her report.

***

"Morning, Flack!" said Stella. It was 2 days after he met with Minerva Watson, Stella's friend. They were in a crime scene at 4 AM.

"Too morning, to be exact." he said in grumpy voice.

"Drop that attitude, detective." said Lindsay who came behind her.

They started processing the crime scene. When Stella packed the evidence and brought them to her car, Flack, didn't know what made him did that, approached her and asked casually. "So, how's your friend doing?"

Stella raised her eyebrow, tried to suppress the urge to burst out laugh. Flack's been asking about Minerva every single time he met Stella. Stella didn't know whether he did that consciously or not.

"Which friend?" Stella asked back innocently.

"Um… Minerva Watson." answered Flack, almost in whispered as Lindsay came closer.

"She's fine. Why didn't you ask her, yourself? Or does this charming detective start to lose his charm?"

Lindsay chuckled as she heard Stella. "I don't know, Stell. Maybe you're right. Danny said he hasn't have date in 2 days. And for Flack, that's unusual."

"Haha… I was just busy." defended him.

"Oh yeah… sure you are. Or you just fall in love to someone." said Stella again. "Danny acted the same way back then" she continued, winked to Lindsay, awarded her with a grin.

"Really? Who's this girl?" asked Lindsay with enthusiasm as if she found an important piece of evidence.

"Stop it, will you. Pack your evidence and get anything that will help me solve this case, will you?" said Flack defeated, made both his female co-workers burst in laugh.

***

Minerva Watson had just finished her night shift from the hospital. Tired as always, she walked to her apartment's door in 5th floor. She rummaged her bag, took her pencil case and drew out her door key. She opened her door and surprised by what she saw in front of her. She dropped her purse and her groceries, pulled a pair of latex gloves from her purse, put it on as she placed her mobile phone between her check and her shoulder, tried to reach 911.

She moved to the laying body on the pool blood, a knife was stabbed on his back. Her knife. She checked his carotid, tried to find his pulse. No pulse. She reported the emergency to 911 operator calmly, thanks to her experience in emergency ward. She gave her address. The operator asked her to wait outside her door. She was about to check the pupil of the guy, when she realized that he was Leo, her neighbor. The same guy who was about to rape her 3 nights before. She was shock. Very shock. She finished check the pupil, was sure that he had died less than an hour before due to his rigor mortis. She just stepped outside her door when she heard siren down her apartment. She felt she was about to collapse, but she braced herself, told herself that she had to give some information. She closed her eyes, gathered her things and stood against the door, tried to relax herself, calming her heart rate. She pulled out her gloves, packed it as it should be, then dropped it in a plastic bag. She knew the police will need her gloves.

"Minerva?" a familiar voice greeted her by her first name.

She looked up just to find her gazed met into a friendly detective who saved her from the guy who's now lying dead on his apartment floor. "Detective Flack." she was finally able to greet him back.

Flack nodded. He looked at her apartment, quite taken aback with what he saw. He called Mac and reported the situation, asked his team to come up and process the scene. He let the other officers to search the area in case anything out of place. He walked toward Minerva, who now looked very tired and shocked, but managed to remain calm.

She told him what was happened. How she was found the dead body after she opened her door. She told him that she went inside and tried to checked whether he was alive or not, she gave him the plastic bag with her gloves inside it. She didn't have any idea why the guy was there. Flack asked her to wait in the ambulance. She just nodded.

Lindsay and Danny arrived. Flack greeted them with, "Man, why I got this happy couple? You two can't get yourselves far from each other, can you?" with a grinned on his face.

Danny just wrapped his hand on her wife's shoulder and replied, "Nah… Mac knows that we are a perfect team, in crime scene, and in bed." he chuckled, when Lindsay glared at him.

"Drop it, Messer. I don't want to hear you brag about how perfect your life. How's Lucy?" he asked Lindsay.

"She's with Danny's mum. Thanks to her, we are able to come on time. I really have to find someone who can look after her properly. Danny's mum is incredible, but we can't always rely on her. The babysitter can't make it if we both on call, like today."

"Where's Mac then?" Danny asked Flack. He had opened his kit and put on his gloves, same as Lindsay. God, they were really a perfect team, groaned Flack to himself.

"Not here yet. Told me he was still in another crime scene with Stella. He said he'll meet me in department with our witness."

"So, what do we got here?" asked Lindsay. Ready to work.

"Well, our victim is Leo Boxer. He lived in the 7th floor of this apartment, room 713. 2 floors right up this apartment. Stabbed by a kitchen knife on his back."

"Who found her?" asked Danny. He surveyed the area. A clean apartment, he noted. Nothing's out of place, except the quilt which placed near the victim, soaked with blood on the corner, nothing out of place. He smelled vanilla scent in the room.

"The occupant of this apartment. Her name is Minerva Watson, 24 years old. She just came back from her work, opened the door, found the victim there. She called 911, tried to check the pulse, when she was about to checked the pupil, she noticed who the victim was. Victim's already dead when she arrived; she assumed he's been dead for less than an hour."

Danny raised his eyebrow. What kind of witness who could tell them the details? Even the time of death, despite it was just an assumption. "That detail? Man, you know what they said about first arrived in crime scene?"

"Do you think she's the killer and just pretend to find the body?" Flack asked Danny. "No way." he said, even before Danny answered.

Lindsay turned around. Well, this is new. Flack usually opened up to any possibility. It was accustom that they suspect anyone, even the witness. Until the evidence told otherwise, they remained as suspects.

"Well… well… so how can our witness guess the TOD?" Lindsay asked while taking crime scene photos. She made a mental note of how girly this apartment was. There was a vase of roses on the coffee table, a pile of magazines near the telephone table. All about hospital and nursing. The living room floor was covered by a nice warm light pink rug. The white sofa with two flower-shaped cushions remained untouched. No sign of battle here.

"She is a nurse." said Flack short, confirmed Lindsay's assumption based on the magazines.

Suddenly, it made sense to Lindsay. "Minerva? Nurse? Is she a friend of Stella?"

Flack raised his eyebrow, the nodded. Glared at her, told her with his eyes, "Don't tell anything stupid you heard from Stella, not in front of Danny."

"If this apartment wasn't his apartment, what the hell was he doing here?" asked Danny, collecting the blood sample. Flack shrugged his shoulder.

"What was the relationship between our victim and our dear witness?" said Lindsay, trying to find anything unusual.

The phone rang suddenly. The three of them froze. The phone went to the voicemail. They heard a friendly male voice, "Hey Minerva, this is Clark. I just wanna tell you about the condition of the Keyton boy you helped. He'll be fine. Your hard work was paid off. As usual, the number of death happened in our emergency ward decrease when you are here. Have a nice day. Oh, and by the way, you still owe me a dinner."

"Well, looks like that explain the grocery bag on top the cabinet near the door." said Lindsay.

"You two can process this crime scene? I need to bring our witness to department."

"Don't forget to ask her fingerprints and DNA." said Danny. Flack nodded.

"And her telephone number, maybe she'll need to cancel her date with this Clark guy and this Flack guy over here can get a chance or two." Lindsay shouted as well. Flack was about to say something, but canceled it. Lindsay grinned in pleasure.

"You know the witness?" asked Danny when Flack leaved.

Lindsay shook her head, she told him that she knew Minerva was Stella friend. She informed him about Stella's story how Flack met Minerva.

"Wait, you said that this Leo guy ever assaulted and tried to rape our witness?" Lindsay nodded.

"You know what that's called?" asked Danny.

"Motive." Danny nodded.

"But the question is, what was he doing here? Flack said that Minerva just got back from her work. If she just finished her shift, we need to know how long she need to get home, since it will only takes her 30 minutes to arrive from hospital. She found him on 11 AM. Her shift was finished at 9 AM, she had 2 hours. The man was dead no less than 1 hour, I agree with her for the TOD."

"If she bought the grocery first, that'll make sense." Lindsay defended her. Something in Stella story said this kind of girl couldn't do anything like killing someone.

"Yeah, sure." Danny said, but he wasn't going to drop his suspicion, until his instinct told him otherwise.

"Maybe she didn't kill him on purpose, maybe he came here, she freaked out, and stabbed him."

"In the back?" Lindsay raised her eyebrow. Danny just shrugged.

Danny moved to the kitchen. "Hey babe, come here."

"What, what you've found?"

"Nothing. Just wonder, how can anyone be so clean and neat like this? Look. She even has three different trash cans, for plastic, organic, and paper. Then the other one with yellow plastic bag. Infectious?"

"That's normal for woman. My apartment was almost like that, when I was single. Sharing house with you made it impossible for me to keep anything in the right place." She winked at Danny.

Danny kissed her forehead. "But you like it, don't you?" he smirked.

Lindsay rolled her eyes. "She is very tidy and well-organized. She arranges the content in her fridge. Let's search the other rooms, I'm sure we will notice anything out of place immediately, if she really organize other rooms like this."

Minerva's bedroom and bathroom were also neat and well-organized. She even put new towel and bath robe in the bathroom cabinet. She put the bottles of soap, shampoo, conditioner, and any other toiletries on the shelf. Lindsay found a contact lens solution. She had a first-aid kit in her room, a very advanced first aid kit. She put a set of minor surgery instrument in the small shelf near the bookshelf.

Her bed was covered in pink and white sheet, no wrinkles at all. It looked as if you could throw the coin on the bed and the coin would bounce easily.

"I doubt our victim even manage to get to her bedroom." Danny said. Nothing unusual from this place.

"Yep, nothing untouched. But Danny, you're right. She is very neat. I'm impressed." Lindsay said while opening her drawer next to her bed.

"Danny!" she said in alarmed.

She pulled out a berretta from the drawer. "Does she have license for this?"

"Let's bag it. We can ask her about that."

***

Stella rushed to the interrogation room. She pushed the door open and face to face with Mac and Flack.

"Stella?" Minerva greeted her.

"Are you all right?" she asked her eagerly, ignored both men.

"Relax, Stell. I'm okay. Don't worry, I'm not the one that was hurt. they just asked me about what happen this morning."

"I want this case." she said straight to Mac. Mac stared at her. She held her gaze.

"Stella," Minerva touched her arms. "You don't have to do this. I do okay. I really am." Flack watched her and Stella.

"Besides," she smiled, "I wanna talk to you later, as a friend. Shared my experience today, ok? You know, in hospital we have an ethic not to take care someone we know, relatives or friends. We try to keep our work professional. I'm sure you have to same ethic too here. These gentlemen are very kind. They didn't push me like I'm a criminal."

"That's because you're not." Flack said before he could think of anything, rewarded him with a glare from Mac, "I meant… now we questioned you as witness."

"I'll stay here then. As her friend." said Stella. Mac nodded.

"Do you know why Leo was in your apartment?"

"Honestly, I don't know. I don't even know how he could get into my apartment in the first place. I never gave him access to my apartment. I had spare key, but I put it in my drawer."

"You reported him for assault, three nights before, right?"

"Yes. He was about to…" she gulped. "… mm… rape me. But then I was helped by Detective Flack. Then he asked me to fill in a report."

"After that, had he came to see you."

Minerva nodded. "He lived 2 floors up stair. He tried to talk to me, but I didn't want to. He banged my apartment door sometimes. I ignored him. I thought I was just hurt his pride."

"What exactly is your relationship with him?" asked Flack. Stella watched him.

"He was a friend of mine. I've been lived there for 2 years since I arrived from Australia. He helped me move in. We used to have lunch and do shopping together. I thought he was gay, but then he introduced me to his girlfriend. 3 nights before, we just came back from Rita's house. She held a birthday party back then." She stopped. Looked up at the guys, then share glance with Stella. Stella nodded, approved her testimony.

"We need your prints and DNA to rule you out from the suspect." Mac said.

Minerva nodded. "Where will you go? You can't go back to your house, it's an active crime scene now." asked Stella.

"I'll stay at the hotel." she said.

"You can stay at my place." offered Stella.

"Thanks, Stell. But I think I'm doing fine. I just need to pack something. My work uniform, my violin. Can i?"

"I'm afraid no." said Mac.

"But I have to use my uniform to work." she insisted.

"I'll accompany you. Is it okay, Mac?" said Flack. Mac frowned, but he nodded.

Mac phone beeped. A text message from Danny.

"Miss Watson, one more question. You own a gun?"

"Yes. A Berretta. I have a license for that." She opened her purse, pulled out a license card from her wallet.

Mac nodded.

***

"Stella, I can't say I appreciate what you did back then."

"I know. Sorry. I just can't let her be a suspect, Mac." she added. "She's my friend. A good friend of mine."

"Care to share the story?"

Stella then told how she met Minerva almost two years ago in the gallery hall. Then they met again in Hospital when Stella helped a girl who crashed her car in accident. She watched as Minerva worked to save the girls. She thanked Stella, and remembered her.

She was a good listener. She was the one who Stella shared her feeling with after the HIV incident. They seldom met, but she always helped her when she needed to, by phone, or by email. She had ability to sooth others. Minerva knew better that just by simply talking about the problem will help.

For a long time knowing her, Stella never saw her cried or upset, or lost control. She always managed to remain calm and under control. Her work in emergency ward seemed had something to do with her attitude. But Stella knew, that she was trembling back then. Even she managed to make her voice calm and steady.

"And do you know why she didn't want us to swab her cheek cell, instead she asked for her hand's epithelia?"

Stella shook her head. She confused too, why her friend offer the DNA from her hands, well… DNA result will came back the same from one person, so she just thought that maybe she just didn't wanna taste the swab in her mouth. No big deal.

***

The team worked hard processed the evidence. The knife used was Minerva's. Her prints the only one found on the knife. If there's another suspect, they might be used the quilt to hold the knife. A shred of wool was found on the knife's kilt. It matched the quilt. No defense wound on the victim, he was stabbed on his back. Never saw it coming. His blood alcohol was high. The stabbed wound was deep. His COD was shock; he lost a lot of blood. His TOD was less than 1 hour, same first TOD assumption from Minerva. No sign of toxic substance.

Mac and Danny questioned Rita Dixon, the victim's fiancé. She said she never in that apartment. She accused Minerva was seduced Leo. She said she had no doubt that Leo was cheating on him, and Minerva killed him because Leo didn't want to break up from Rita. Lindsay had to hold Stella before she could storm out the room to slap the woman who called her friend 'bitch'.

The affair thing was new. They need to question Minerva again. Lindsay was sent to question her.

***

Lindsay knocked the room 311. She heard the door unlocked and met Minerva for the first time.

"Hey," she greeted friendly. Lindsay couldn't help to return her smile. Stella was right, this girl was something, thought Lindsay. This girl could arise the sisterly feeling. Like she has known her for a long time.

She realized something odd. She didn't even realize that she stared to her eyes, unable to blink. She had different eye's color in each eye.

"I'm a heterochromia." she answered while offering Lindsay a drink. Lindsay was embarrassed. She knew about heterochromia, but hadn't met one.

Minerva said lightly, "This is what happens if your parents argued what eye color their daughter will have." she giggled. "I hope you and your husband didn't have argumentation like that."

Lindsay chuckled and said, "Sorry. And no, you're right. We didn't have a debate for eye's color. But we do have a debate about our daughter's name."

She grinned and asked, "As much as I'm curious to know why you finally agree with your husband's choice, I do realize that you're here because you wanna ask about something related to the case, am I right?"

Lindsay cursed herself for getting carried away. Wait until Danny found out about this, she thought. "Yes, actually, we questioned Rita Dixon, and…"

Lindsay explained to her. Minerva swore that she never had affair with Leo, she repeated her story about when she thought Leo was a gay. She even innocently said that she was confused about the reason why Rita thought Leo was cheating on her with Minerva.

"He ever tried to rape me, yes. But that's not mean he was interested in me, right?" she stated.

Lindsay now knew what might caused Flack had a thing for her. This girl is something. She couldn't explain it by words, but… Stella was right. She was perfect for Flack. Flack was always gloomy after Angell's death. He was still a player as before, but his co-workers knew that he suffered from Angell's death. No one could imagine how it liked to lose someone you love. Lindsay knew the feeling, she ever thought that she would lose Danny too, when he pushed her away. But in her case, they ended up married, while Flack wouldn't be able to have Angell's back.

He never showed a serious attitude to girls, like he did to Angell. But his concern to Minerva, seemed a little bit different. He was sincere. He started to be someone he was before he lost Angell. And Lindsay would do anything to get her best friend back. But at this moment, she had to prove that Minerva was innocent, before Flack fell for her.

***

It's been 2 days since the case happened. The DNA from the quilt belonged to Minerva, which is not weird as she said she knitted the quilt herself, and unknown donors. Minerva said that it might be belong to her friends who sometimes came over to her place. They all came back positive, except for one unknown female donor. Rita Dixon objected to give any prints or DNA since she insisted never been in Minerva's apartment. Another odd thing was there's no finger prints in the inner door's handle. The killer must have cleaned that. Until now, the team hadn't found out how victim could enter the apartment.

Leo Boxer seemed to stalk Minerva. He had an agenda with Minerva's schedule. Minerva never knew that before. Unfortunately for her, She didn't have strong alibi. She just had a receipt from the grocery store, at 10 AM. She said that after that she went to the park near her apartment and feed the doves. She wasn't sure if there's even a witness who can support her alibi.

Flack and Danny were in the park Minerva said before. He tried to find anyone who can support her alibi. Danny said they were wasting their time. No one would remember about her. Besides, it happened 2 days ago. When they started to talk about the baseball game, Danny stopped, and motioned Flack to silent. He heard a sound. A violin sound.

"Maybe a street performance." said Flack.

"It's illegal here." said Danny. "Let's go and see, at least we do something today."

But they were amazed when they found out that "the street performance" was Minerva. She played her violin, with children and their mothers around her. She continued playing, not noticing the two detectives were watching her. She finished playing, then realized that she got two more audiences. She smiled politely at them. Both the detectives came closer.

Danny greeted the children, remembered her daughter who was in lab with his wife. Lucy had been very demanding lately. She was whining a lot.

"I knew you can play violin, but I don't know you can play this well." complimented Flack. Danny rolled his eyes.

Minerva blushed a little, said a thank you. Then she asked about their purpose on coming there. Always to the point, exactly like Stella said.

"Who are you, and what you want from Minnie?" asked a 5 year-old boy to Flack. He stood between Flack and Minerva. Minerva giggled while the boy's mother came forward to take him, he rejected and stood still, glared at Flack.

Danny chuckled. Flack was challenged by a toddler.

"I'm a detective. See?" Flack showed his badge. "I just asked her a few questioned."

"I heard about what happened in her apartment." The boy mother's said. "That was a terrible thing. We saw you when you were here, we were going to visit my mother, and the Terry said that he saw you here."

Minerva heart dropped. She had a witness? She even didn't hope to.

"What time did you see her here?" asked Flack, rather hurry.

"M… we left home at 10, so it's about 10.30. Oh, and we got back to our home because I forgot to lock the gate, I think it's about 10.40 or 10.45."

"And was she still here?"

"Well, of course she was. Terry even begged me to go and greet her, but you seemed lost in thought, Minerva. You don't even realize that the doves were trying to get your attention."

Minerva was relieved. She thanked Terry's mum over and over, she kissed and hugged Terry, caused the boy giggled.

"Don't get jealous by a 5 years old boy, Don." Danny said.

She sat there even after the children had gone. Danny went back to department. Flack said he'd go later. He sat beside her.

"Lost in though, huh?" he said. Couldn't stop himself, "Thinking about you dinner date?"

Minerva looked at him, looked ready to argue, then swallowed her argument. "Is that related to the case?" she asked him instead.

"So, how is it like to have a witness?" he asked, changing the topic.

She glanced at him, and smiled sincerely. "It was miracle. I never thought I had one. God, I'm so grateful. How…" she suddenly stopped. Her eyes fixed on Flack's arm.

"What's wrong with your arm?" she asked?

"What do you mean?" Flack confused.

"Did you hurt?" She asked again. Flack did hurt. His arm was bleeding from the knife sliced on his arm while he tried to arrest a drug seller.

"Oh, it's ok. It was nothing."

"When did this happen?" she asked again, ignoring the fact Flack was trying to avoid the topic.

"This morning."

"You didn't bandage it?"

"It's just a small wound."

"Wait here. I'll be back soon." she said before she rushed.

Flack got no choice but waited until she returned. She got something with her when she came back.

"Roll up your sleeves" She commanded.

The wound was deep. There's trail of blood. She put on the gloves, then started to clean the wound. "You can't let the wound like this. It might get infection, and need long time to recover. You should have known that. This wound is quite deep. It didn't need to stitch, thought, but you still need to clean it. Since you're wearing long sleeves, you should bandage it." She said while she started to apply the gauze neatly. She fixed his sleeves back. Then she commented again.

"Do you have girlfriend?"

Flack surprised. "Why you asked that? Are you trying to flirt with me?"

"Oh, nothing special. Your sleeves' button was loosening. You will lose it, if you didn't fix it. Wait…" She rummaged her pursue and brought out a mini sewing kit. She fixed the button in no time.

She suddenly stopped, then looked up. "I'm sorry… I shouldn't do that before."

"What?" Flack confused. "You did nothing wrong. I should say thank you."

She smiled and replied his thanked.

"You do love your job, don't you?" Flack asked. She nodded.

"Why you do this job?" He asked her again.

"Maybe because I'm pretty good at that. And perhaps I'll be lousy if I do another job." she said soft.

Flack chuckled, then cleared his throat, tried to hide the funny feeling.

"Something's wrong?" she asked, raising her eyebrow.

"No, nothing's wrong. I like your answer." he said.

"Then why you laughed?" She demanded.

"I wasn't." she rolled her eyes. "Ok, I almost laughed. Believe it or not, I was once said almost the same thing."

Her grey eyes widened. Flack knew about her eyes, but he hadn't seen them yet. "Really?" she amused. Flack nodded.

"Why do you hide your real eyes' colors?" Flack asked, spontaneously.

"I don't even have to guess where you found out about that," she continued, "not all people are welcome to difference thing. I might have freak someone's out, especially kids, and my patients in hospital. So, when I get to work, or meet with people I don't really know yet, I wear these contacts."

"You know, about this case," Flack tried to be professional again. "We still haven't found anything yet."

"Is it okay with you?" again, Flack was surprised by her question.

"That should be my lines, right?" Flack said. She let her girlish giggle out.

"I mean, is it okay with you, staying with me here? I'm your primary suspect, right? The only one who got my apartment key was me. No one else. I could be the one who let him spent the night, then in the morning I got upset and ended up killed him. Then I pretended to…"

Flack covered her mouth with his hand. He didn't know why he did that. He just didn't like to hear her accused herself being a murderer. She touched his hand with hers, slowly pulling his hand from her mouth.

"How could you be so calm? You didn't mind being a primary suspect? I never met a prime suspect like you." He said.

"Because I believe in you, and your team. I know Stella. She said that her co-workers always try to find the truth behind the crime. It may rough, it may take a long time, but in the end, you will always find it. Then, I trust you all. I believe that you will have the answer for this case. I can't do anything to help. I just can wait here, stay still and pray. I believe that you will find the real killer and I will be free from being a primary suspect. You're not making a mistake, you're just doing your job, then do it. Do whatever you should do. Don't be sorry for that, be proud because you all know that you've protected us here."

Flack admired her more and more now.

"Thank you." he said. "I should go now."

Minerva just nodded. "Say hi to Stella from me, will you. Oh, and tell Danny and Lindsay, that they daughter just suffer from teething. She'll be fine in no time, meanwhile they can give her rubber toy to bite. She may feel her gum's itching, and it is normal if she has a slight fever. And, please, give it to them for me. Thank you." she said, handing him a booklet about teething in a six months baby.

***

"Danny, look what I've found." said Lindsay, turned the monitor to her husband.

"What?" he studied the file reported in that monitor, "that's Minerva's license for her Berretta. Yeah, Mac said that too. What's wrong with this file?"

"She always renews her license. But, never fired a single bullet ever since she got her license for the first time…" she trailed off.

"When she was 12 years old." Danny finished.

"What kind of 12 years old girl had a license to hold such weapon?" she asked him.

"You already learn how to shoot since you're six, right?" Danny scolded him.

"Danny…" she scolded at him.

But she was right, thought Danny. What kind of girl should protected herself by carrying a gun, from the age of 12, but never shot a single bullet from her gun?

"Let's keep the information for ourselves. This finding is not related to the case." said Danny.

"There's another one…" said Lindsay.

"I'm listening."

"She's a chimera."

"A… what?" asked Danny, confused.

That's when Flack came in and told them about what Minerva message.

***

Stella phone rang. Minerva's hospital. She picked it up quickly, then stormed out.

"Hawkes, I got to go. I'll be back later. Tell Mac for me." She yelled.

She almost bumped to Flack in the elevator.

"Hey, what's up with the rush? You solve your case?"

"Not yet, but you gonna lose your primary suspect."

"What d'ya mean?" he confused. He only had one prime suspect at this time.

"Oh, Minerva said hi to you."

"You met her?" asked Stella.

"Yeah, I was just got back from break room, spoke to Danny and Lindsay. She asked me to send message about Lucy…"

"Where did the last time you met her?" demanded Stella.

"Stell, you scare me. What's going on?"

"She's in hospital now. Hit and Run."

"I'll drive." said Flack immediately.

***

Stella showed her badge at the front door. The nurse who opened the door glared at them, they said nothing. She just left. Then the wise-looking woman came out. Her uniform told that she was the Head Nurse.

"I'm Stella Bonasera. I'm a friend of Minerva. I heard…"

"Do you come here as her friend or a police officer?"

"What's the difference?" asked Flack, impatiently.

The Head Nurse said nothing.

"As her friend." Stella said.

"Then I need you to put your badge for yourself. You know, here, that badge means nothing for us. Especially when you suspected one of us as a killer."

"I'm so sorry Mrs…" Stella glanced to her name tag, "Mrs. Mallory. I really am. Now, can I see my friend?"

"We only allow one visitor, and you'll need to wear the ICU's scrub."

Stella looked at Flack. "I'll let her know you're coming." Flack just nodded. He sat on the chair outside the door. Stella stepped inside.

"Hey, Minerva." She didn't give any response. Stella never remembered saw her weak like this. The ventilator near her beeped constantly.

"Remember what you've told me before about how it felt to breath not by your own? You got that now, you know that? If…" Stella stopped, "When you awake, you have to tell me how it feel?"

"How's she doing?" She asked Mallory.

"She was hit pretty bad. It may be a small car, she had incomplete femoral fracture, her head hit the road, fortunately, she covered her head with her hands. Smart girl. This tiny body wasn't design to get that kind of damages. But, somehow, she managed to lessen the effects. She never woke up since she brought here by an ambulance."

"She's gonna be alright. She is a fighter. She can't lose here."

"Her head didn't suffer great trauma because she protected it."

"Then, why she's in coma?"

"Maybe that's what she chose. Stay in peaceful. Away from accusation from the police and victim's fiancé about being a murder. The bitch showed up almost everyday to the emergency ward, accused her to kill Leo. She forced to take days off, to avoid a ruckus at work."

"How did she deal with that?" Stella never knew that. She called her yesterday, and the day before, she sounded like her usual being.

"What would you feel when you're suspended in a case just because you had a connection with that, even though it's not your fault?" Mallory asked her back.

"I would be depressed." She answered.

***

Stella's been quite since she left the hospital. She even ignored Flack. She met Mac in the lab.

"Stella, how's she doing?"

Stella just shook her head. "I'm going to process my evidence."

"Danny and Lindsay are in the crime scene. They process it. Hope we can find the driver."

Stella nodded.

***

"Hey Flack, how's she doing?" asked Lindsay.

Flack just shrugged his shoulder. "What we've got here?"

"You were from the hospital, right?"

"Linds, not now, please." Lindsay was about to argue when Danny put his hand on her shoulder and shook his head.

"Well… we got tire marks, blood and lamp fragments. But, the most important thing is, we've got surveillance camera there. The driver forgot that every junction in New York has surveillance camera."

"And we got witnesses. A lot of them." added Danny.

"What are we waiting for, then? Let's bring this criminal in."

***

"We got her. I'm sorry it took a while until we got enough evidence to catch her. Until…" Stella cleared her throat, "until she's been careless and hit you."

"I…" she fought her tears now, "I slapped the bitch, you know. I know you wouldn't let me if you were there. Lindsay said she wanted one too, but Danny held her tight."

"Do you know you've got a lot of new friends now? Lindsay and Danny were curious to ask you about how you found out that they were worried about Lucy. You didn't even meet her yet. Mac asked me to say 'Hi' to you. And Flack…."

"I think he got a crush on you. I told you that he once loved Jess, right? He's never been the same again since she died. But after he met you, well… he started to act like Flack that we missed."

"And I need my friend. I need my friend who would listen to my complaints at work. Someone who can laugh at my bad days. So please, wake up. Oh, did I tell you already, the nurses here started to become friendly once I told them I caught the real killer. They didn't glare at me like I glare at the scumbag in my interrogation room. Your friends and co-workers, they love you. Oh, and I'll wait for the story about Doctor Clark. How could you never tell me about him?"

"Come on, Minerva, I know you're curious to know how we got the criminal. You want to know why Leo was in your apartment? There were many unanswered questions, but now I have the answers. I know you can't stand to know that. So, wake up, and I'll tell you all. I'll tell you anything you wanna know."

"Stell, do you know that you shouldn't ask too many questions to sick people?"

Stella surprised and looked up, staring into her different color's eyes. "Oh God… You awake?"

"I couldn't sleep with such noise, could I?" she smiled. "Well, Ms. Detective, you should have recognized that I'm no longer attached to ventilator, I used this oxygen mask."

"But when?"

"Just a couple hours ago. And when I tried to sleep, you kept asking me questions. You are so mean…" She tried to laugh, instead she coughed.

"Easy there, sist. I'll let everyone know." then she stopped. "Do you hear all the things I said?"

"Just some, about you need me to hear your complaints and about you have a crush on Doctor Clark." she smiled.

"That's not what I said."

"Really? Caused I heard it different. Must be the anesthetics." She raised her eyebrow.

"Oh, shut up." Stella smile. Hugged her for the last time then walked to the door. "I'll meet you again tomorrow." she stopped before opened the door, "and, oh, I took your belongings from the hotel to my apartment. You will stay with me until you're fine. No buts." as she was about to argue.

Minerva just nodded.

***

Stella almost bumped into a man with a white-hospital coat. She saw the name tag, Clark Sanders.

"Doctor Clark?" she called before she could help it.

"Yes?"

"Oh, uh… nothing." she said.

"Do I know you." he asked again?

"Not yet." said Stella while walking away. Not yet, but I'm gonna make Minerva told him whoever he was, because he's a potential rival for Flack.

***

1 month later…

Minerva just put the salad into the fridge. She glanced toward the dining table and saw everything's ready. She just needed the cake ready, then a couple minutes to decorate it, then put it in her fridge.

She heard the door bell rang. She pulled out the wire phone, "Yes?"

"Stella's here." replied the familiar voice.

"Wait a second." Minerva rushed to the front door and opened it just to meet not only Stella, but also The Messers, Mac Taylor, Flack, and one man she hadn't met yet but she knew him from Stella's story, Sheldon Hawkes.

"Well, I thought I heard 'Stella's here' not 'Stella's and her team are here', if I knew all of you already came, I would have prepared myself well." she grinned awkwardly.

"That apron suits you well," said Flack. She smiled lightly at him and invited everyone to come in.

She kissed Lucy's forehead, "I really wanna touch her, but I guess I better get my hands clean first." she said.

"We brought you this." said Mac, gave her a nice red wine.

"Oh, you shouldn't have to," she said. "But thanks anyway." she said and hugged Mac.

"Thanks for the invitation, we haven't met in person." this time Hawkes offered his hand.

"My pleasure." she answered and shook the offering hand.

"So, why don't you guys wait here until I finished the stuff in my kitchen? And no, Stella, I can do this alone. Don't worry. I want to thank to you all for helping me back then, and since I can't think of anything better to show my gratitude, all I can do is just invited you to the once-crime-scene, and offered you a dinner. Can't guarantee the quality of the food, though." She smiled to them all.

"You know you shouldn't have to do this," said Stella. "And don't be modest about your food. Your cooking skill is another reason why I try hard to keep our friendship."

"Oh, trust me, I know how a simple thank you can motivate you. I deal with life, and sometimes, when I'm tired and overwhelmed, a simple thank you from my patients or their family can boost my mood." she answered and walked through the kitchen.

"You've got a good friend out there, Stell." said Mac.

Stella nodded. "Yeah, but I'm afraid that I should get used to share her with my team." she said jokingly.

"Guilty." said Lindsay, awarded her a question look from everyone but Danny. "What? I just asked her a couple questions about baby. She's good at that, you know."

"Something's telling me that we will get in touch with her more often," stated Mac.

"Dinner's ready…" they heard her voice from the kitchen. They all walked there, deep inside their heart, they thought about Mac's words.


	2. Chapter 2

Note From The Author— So, what do you think of the first chapter? I know, perhaps in this story my character stole all the light. read and review please… I do open to any suggestion

Disclaimer—I don't own the characters of CSI: NY, or any plot in CSI series. Like all said, I wish I had…

Chapter 2

Concert Hall

"Oi, Stella, where are you going?"

"I finished my shift today, Danny! I'm going home."

"Wowowow… wait. New evidence just arrived, and you can't go now."

"Overtime again? God… Danny, you just screw my date." Stella said.

Danny just smirked. "Care to share with whom?"

"Minerva" answered Stella. She saw a shocked look from Danny.

"Relax, I'm normal. It's our girl's night out. I had these two tickets to classical concert in the concert hall tonight. I don't have date to go, and she loves classical music, so… we decided to go there tonight. Seems this ticket will be wasted…"

"Or useful for arranged a date for a friend." suggested Lindsay from behind them.

"Do you think, what I think you're thinking?" asked Stella. Lindsay just raised her eyebrow and grinned.

"Hey, what's this is all about?" asked Danny. Both women just rolled their eyes and moved along way the corridor.

***

"Wait up…" Minerva shouted. She's still in her room, packed her must-carry things in her pursue. She opened her drawer and looked at the Berretta. She didn't know why, but she grabbed the gun and the holder, and hid the gun in her inner thigh.

She opened her apartment's door just to come face-to-face with Don Flack.

"Em… I suppose to meet Stella now, but…" she said raised her finger to stop Flack from expaing, "I guess she had a date with any kind of evidence thing there, and she made you come here to accompany me to the concert, right?"

Flack nodded and grinned. "Perfect. So are you ready to go now?"

"Can we stop by the flower shop?" she asked him as she got inside the car.

"Anything you ask." answered Flack.

"Then I guess, I'm ready to go"

***

"What are we exactly looking at?" Hawkes said.

"Don't ask me." said Stella. "Who found this evidence?"

"Guilty." answered Mac from the door. "I thought this evidence will link us to the leader of this new gang."

"Mac!" Danny rushed to the lab.

"Hey, didn't you drive Lindsay home?" asked Stella.

"I did, on my way back here, I got this from the receptionist in the lobby." he offered Mac a letter.

"'You made mistake by interfering our work. You'll free my man, or the next play will be the Beethoven's Eroica.'"

"Clearly from the gang." stated Hawkes.

"What they want? Release their friends?" asked Danny.

"Mac, it's a threat." said Stella.

"I guess so. But what's they gonna do?" Mac lost in his thought.

"They'll hold hostage?" suggested Adam. "But where…"

"Oh no…" Stella said, pointing to the Beethoven's Eroica. "They're going to make the people that come to concert hall tonight as their hostages. And Eroica is a funeral march"

"It's a lot of people, a lot of important people."

"Isn't that place where you're going to go before, Stell?" asked Danny. Stella nodded.

"Uh, oh… so… Minerva and Flack are there?" asked Hawkes.

"Boom…"

"Call Flack! Tell him the situation. Hope we can still prevent the hostage situation."

***

The conductor bowed to the audience. Prepare for the last sheet of music. Flack couldn't take his eyes of off the woman sat right next to him. Minerva looked amazing. Her red shining hair was knotted in a neat small bun with few strands of hair cascaded her face. She used grey contact lenses as usual. Her long night gown covered her body but showed her perfect curved. She looked sweet, hell… she even smelled sweet.

Flack finally broke his attention, thanks to his cellphone buzzed in his pocket.

"Flack." he whispered. Fully aware that people started to stare at him. Minerva looked at him with concern.

"What do you mean by…"

Then they heard a loud shot.

"Pardon me for the interruption. I need to announce something important. First of all, all cell phone are about to collected, while you remained in you seat. You all are going to help me save my friends from death penalty. Thank you." he said through his nylon mask. "Oh, and, I forgot to tell you: anyone, I repeat, anyone who tries to play hero, will have to deal with my gun."

Soon the panicked arouse in the hall. The women started to cried and squeaked.

"What happen?" asked Minerva in her calm tone.

"We arrested 5 members of their gang this morning. Drugs. They tried to release them. Maybe they thought that by holding us as hostages will force the department to free their friends."

Flack continued his phone call with Mac as silent as possible. Meanwhile, Minerva's rummaging through her purse, pulled out blue-lens glasses. Handed it to Flack, motioned him to wear that. He gave her a questioned look. She ignored him, she bent over him and started to caress, not caress but rather re-style his hairstyle. She opened his tie also.

After that, she pulled her own mobile, put her Bluetooth earphone on her right ear, push a number on her phone, then to Flack's surprised, she pulled up her long dress and tied her phone to her inner tight, Flack noticed her Berretta on the other side of her thigh. He tried to ignore how smooth and glisten her thigh looked like.

She kept busied herself with untied her hair bun, leaving her hair covered the earphone. She gestured Flack to hang up. Flack said his last update to Mac, then looked at her.

"What are you doing?" he asked while trying to make his hair back to its normal hairstyle.

"Don't!!!" she said. "There's a possibility they recognize you. It is better for all of us, if they don't' know who you are. They'll collect the phone. Can you hide yours?"

Flack nodded, then bent over to put his mobile inside one of his ankle. "And what did you do to yourself? Not that I'm complaining about a beautiful view I watched." He smirked.

She frowned, "I tried to contact Stella, she's here in the line with me now. I need to hide my phone, by doing this, Stella can hear what happen here. Beside, I don't think you're a kind of guy who would choose to sit back and watch, or safe by your friends. I'm sure we can do something in here."

Flack didn't notice he held his breath. What kind of girl is she actually, he wondered. "Ok, there are at least 5 guys here. I don't know this hall well, so I don't know which one we can use as the escape door. Mac said, they gave them 2 hours to choose, and after that, they'll kill one hostage every one hour."

"I know this hall, quite well. There are four entrances. 2 public entrances, like the one we used to come inside. One entrance to the main hall in the backstage, and the other to the emergency door. But, I'm sure, they guard all the entrance. What should we do now?"

"We?! No… stop right there, Minerva. It's a police business" said Stella from the line.

The team gathered, Stella's phone connected to the loud speaker, so everyone could hear their conversation.

"Ok, then, what you want me to do?" asked Minerva stubbornly.

"Give the phone to Flack." ordered Mac.

"Not a chance. Mac, these guys will notice the blootooth device on his ear, like it or not, I can help here. At least, I can become your owl. The device is covered securely by my hair."

"Yeah… very funny. Owl from Minerva. But no… we can't endanger civilian. You know that. So please, humour me…"

"She's right, Stell, we've got no other option."

"Thanks, Danny…" said Minerva.

Danny motioned to Hawkes about, 'she can recognize our voice correctly? Damn…"

Hawkes just shrugged his shoulder. It's common thing, nurse should recognize their patients' voice, and the other sounds from medical devices. He impressed, she was smart. Owl was believed to be Minerva's, Goddess of wisdom, messenger. Now, the Goddess herself offered to be the owl.

They heard the kidnapper ordered all of them to gather near the stage. They heard a rustle as all the audiences walked toward.

"Okay, now I want everyone to go to the scene. We'll think about the strategy while we updated the situation. Called the bomb squad, I have bad feeling about this."

"Right. The concert hall ballroom is design to be soundproof, from either side. People inside the ballroom can't hear anything, even the loudest noise from outside, either way it works." added Stella.

"So, the kidnappers won't have slightest idea about we're being in the same building." suggested Hawkes.

"And we have what they don't have. We have a spy in their ballroom." said Adam.

"Boom…"

***

Minerva was scared. Hell… of course, she was. The calm evening just turned out to be a catastrophic. She wished she could just show how frighten she was, but she thought it's not a wise move. She should do something here. Anything. First, she needed to take the kidnappers down. But how… There are a lot of innocent people here. She watched a middle aged couple. The wife held tightly to her husband shoulders. She moved closer to them, whispered:

"Don't worry, we'll be alright."

The husband nodded. "Thanks God, I haven't injected the insulin, cause I assume my dinner will be late."

"You're diabetes?" Minerva asked. The man nodded.

She thought fast, maybe… maybe she could use this. "Do you, by any chance, bring your insulin?"

"Of course, John and I were planning to have a dinner at Il Mary today." said his wife.

"I know it might sound crazy, but can I have your syringe and insulin please?"

The man looked confuse, but he took what she asked from his inner pocket and hand it to her. Minerva watched the guys and found that they were busied by searching the place for anything. She filled the syringe with the insulin, enough to make someone instantly hypoglycemic and pass out for some time. She recap the syringe, then silently put the syringe between her cleavage, deep enough not to be noticed, but still easy to reach out. She smiled and squeezed the old lady's hand.

She glanced at the cop sat next to her. He watched the guys carefully, trying to recognize them. That's gave her an idea. If only she could find their weakness… she could find a way out. Just as if answering her wish, she saw one of the gang walked to the leader. He dragged his right foot. She watched carefully as the dragged-foot guy kept gritted his teeth and his shirt soaked by sweat.

"I have a plan…" she said. Shocking Flack, and the rest of the team outside.

***

"What is she doing there?" asked Danny, confused.

"She's a good nurse. Try to keep everyone's calm and relax." said Hawkes.

"Yeah… and she have plan." said Mac.

"How?" asked Stella. "Mac, we can't involve her. We already have the SWAT team covered this building, all the entrance, the rooftop, hell… everywhere. What we should do now is find the position. The video surveillances are cut off."

"We still installing the heat sensor device… see if we could get impression from that." Hawkes replied. "Yep, 5 men. armed… the hostages are gathered near the stage. No one can leave, or even stand, without being noticed."

"How about the ceiling? Anything out of place?" asked Mac.

"Mac," said Danny in alarm. "I think you're right. I think the infrared sensor found something in the air duct."

"A bomb…" said Mac. "We need to take down the bomb. Have a bomb squad to find an entrance to the bomb location."

The team rushed. They're still waiting for one thing, though. A phone call from the kidnappers. The SWAT team tried to find entrance to the ballroom. But as the architect said with proud, no one could break in to the room without being noticed. Now, this criminals had found themselves a fortress, full of hostages. The team knew instantly that whatever they did, even agreed to release the villain, they wouldn't let the hostages alive. They would blow the entire hall, started from the ballroom.

"I have a plan…" they heard Minerva's voice through the wire…

***

"What do you mean you have a plan? You heard what Stella said: there's no way we involve you in this. Do me a favor and act like a real hostage, ok?"

"What? Whining, crying, and panicking? I thought we have enough of them. Why you want me to add some stress?"

"Because he wants to find reason to hug you, Minerva" said Danny jokingly.

"Haha… very funny." answered Minerva, but she couldn't help herself to blush.

"What?!" Flack asked.

"Never mind. Back to my plan."

"No plan." said Stella.

"Stell… you guys know you don't have much choice. Besides, I'm doing this for myself. I wanna change to my casual clothes, go home and curl in my coach." she changed her strategy. "Mac, you're the boss, I know you eager to know what my plan is. I know this building well, there's no way you can force to enter without being notice by the guys here."

Stella stared at Mac. She shook her head furiously. Mac gave her a pleading look, "Spill it."

Minerva relieved. "Well, as I said before, you can't get in or get out without being noticed by the guys, so… what we can do just simply make the guys not noticing anything."

"You mean, take them down?" asked Mac.

Minerva nodded. Then realized Mac couldn't see her. "Yep."

"How?"

"Leave it to me, but I have to ask Mr. Cop here to help me."

"You got him." said Mac. "And Minerva, don't push yourself, don't make yourself hurt, or Stella here will hunt me down."

"Copy that, sir." she said, then added, "I won't do anything that can make you worry about me, Stell, that's your role, not mine…"

"Flack, I will tell when you can take part, before that, don't do anything, ok. Please… for once, be an obedient guy and let me do this."

Not wasting her time, she stood up and raised her arm like she was in school and had a question to ask to her teacher. One of the guys approached her.

"What you want?" he asked.

"Your friend is sick. I can help him."

"What is your concern?"

"Nothing, I just feel boring sitting here. I'm a nurse. I can help him, or he will be a burden for all of you. He's been shot right, on his foot. I can tell that you can't get the bullet out, and he got fever right now. He will suffer from infection in no time, and before you can get out from this hall, he would suffer a lot. I won't surprise if he will lose his foot because the infection has gone too far." She said, praying that her threat will scare the dragged-foot guy.

Hawkes listened carefully to what she said. Sure, almost everything she said is true, but she didn't even bother to tell that the guy would have long way to go before he lost his foot.

"This girl is amazing." He said in awe.

Like she was planned, the dragged-foot guy looked terrified. He walked toward her, grabbed her neck and talked through gritted teeth, "You lie."

Minerva looked the guy in the eyes. "Why should I?"

"Why you wanna help him?"

"I'm a nurse. Besides, I just offer to help. It's your choice. Take it, or leave it. I'm hoping with this, you can know that we all here fully cooperate, so you don't need to hurt us. Your business is with the NYPD, not me, not us. You'll set us free once you've got what you want, huh?"

"Cal?" the dragged-foot man called his gang leader. The man nodded.

"Do what you can do, nurse. If you do anything stupid, I'll shoot you myself."

Minerva nodded. First plan, accomplished. She picked her purse. "You need to lay back. I need to check your vital sign."

She did what she used to do to her patients. Check the vital sign, this guy got a high fever. The guy took her to the backstage. He laid on the couch there, she was busied herself looking for anything for bandage his foot, she gave him an aspirin. She said, she needed a white clean clothes, to his friend on the backstage door. She came out and told Flack to help her. Flack knew, it's time to play.

She had asked Flack to crush some aspirin pills she brought before, Flack put the powder in his handkerchief. He handed her that handkerchief. She asked the guy guard the door to help too, making for of them stayed in the room.

She muffled the injured man with a fabric, she said, she's going to try to pull out the bullet. She wore her gloves, pulling out her pocket knife and started to make an incision.. She looked at Flack and nodded. Flack tackled down the other guy, managed to hit him in the back of his head. They guy collapse. Flack put on his mask, then took the gun. He hid the unconscious guy in the cupboard, tied and muffled.

"Lucky guys wear the same tux," said Stella.

Meanwhile, Minerva put the powder on the bleeding surface. She wrapped the fabric thighly. Told the guy that she's finished. Flack motioned to the injured guy that he would take Minerva back to the stage. He didn't suspicious.

"Two downs, three to go…" Minerva whispered as Flack escorted her to the stage.

"Now we wait for the sign" she said to her phone.

***

Stella held her breath. She didn't sure what she felt. She impressed, but worried of her friend. She never knew this side of her. This was new to her, knowing her friend was able to think a strategy like that.

The bomb squad needed to locate the bomb. Danny showed them the picture from the infrared sensor.

"Hard to tell. But one thing for sure, this bomb is activated by a remote. How much time left after the bomb active is unknown. We need to get someone tame the bomb."

"Can your people find the entrance?"

"Mac, the bomb was planted from the inside, if we want to get the bomb, we need to get it from the inside."

"Mac, the bomb location is right in the backstage. They planted the bomb in the air duct. If Flack can get into the air duct and reach the bomb. He can inactivate it. " suggested Danny.

"Mac, something's weird. They must be planted this bomb before they take over the ballroom. This ballroom has been secure since 2 days before because of the orchestra."

"They have partner who work here. Hawkes, question the manager."

Mac's phone rang. Everyone alarmed.

"Taylor."

"Detective. Have you considered our request?"

"You want your friends? We need proof. Free the hostages."

"I will set them free, after you give our friends, and our thing."

"Your drugs?"

"Yes, detective. You have any idea how important that drugs for us?"

"I don't. But I know what can the drugs do to you, 25 to life sentence in jail. And don't think I don't know about your bomb inside there."

"You did your homework." the man laugh. "let me give you a present then. I'll tell you about the bomb. We planted the bomb last night. We rolled the bomb inside the air duct, and ever since it rolled inside, the countdown has started. You now have…" he paused. "2 hours or less to save your hostages."

"But that's mean that you will die too."

"Nope, if you don't free our friends and give our drugs back in one hour, you will have to carry your hostages to the morgue and make your ME busy for a couple days. And if there's any trick, any weird action, my friend can simply push the button and we can test whether this building is really as tough as they talked about."

He hung up.

Mac turned to the bomb squad captain. "The bomb is active. We only have two hours, or less. Any strange movement, their partner will blow the bomb with a remote."

"Mac!" Stella shouted.

***

A loud scream came from the backstage. The man called, "Cal" burst inside. Few second later he walked toward Minerva, strangled her neck. Flack froze. He wanted to help her.

"What did you do?"

"Wha…what you mean?" Minerva asked him, tried to breath.

"He's bleeding now."

Minerva coughed, again, and again, desperate of oxygen.

***

"He strangled her." said Mac.

"Minerva, are you okay? Answer me" Stella almost shouted to the mic.

They only heard her cough.

***

Minerva just pray that the earphone won't fall out. Her plan would be ruined.

"He's bleeding because the infection." She managed to talk.

"Fix him!" Cal dragged her by arm. She said nothing. Her eyes fixed on Flack's. Desperately tried to tell him to help her.

"I'll watch the door." He said.

Minerva saw the man laying on the couch been bleeding badly. She waited for that. Cal went out, let Flack on the door.

"You okay?" He whispered.

"I think so." she answered quietly. "I know, Stell… But I had to do this. Tell me how worse this situation can be."

***

"Mac, we must get Flack to the air duct. At least he can try to cut the wire. He knows how to do that." said Danny in urge.

"Mac, we got several suspects. They are janitor, security guard, and caters people who have access to this room." said Hawkes in rush.

"Question them! Bring Lindsay with you." Mac said. "Sorry, Danny."

"It's okay, she'd mad if she left behind, anyway."

"How big is the air duct?"

"The air duct in this building has same size." said Stella, she pointed an air duck.

"Flack can't fit in." Mac mumbled, "But…"

"Minerva can." Stella finished that for him. "But Mac, she doesn't have any equipment, she doesn't even know how to tame a bomb."

"Captain, can you guide a girl to cut a wire?" Mac asked.

"If she can describe what kind of bomb we deal with."

"What equipment she might need?"

"Something to cut, to hold the wire, a stopper maybe. We won't know for sure until we know the type of bomb."

"Minerva, I need you to do something."

***

"Minerva, I need you to do something."

"I'm listening."

"We have a bomb inside the room."

Minerva let out a sharp breath. Flack glanced at her, she shook her head. The bleeding man whined in agony.

"Can you see an air duct in that room?"

"Yes."

"We want you to cut the wire."

"But, I…"

"What are you doing?" shouted the bleeding man.

"I'm sorry. I was just thinking, I talked to myself when I thought hard."

Minerva asked the bleeding man to sit. She convinced him that it was because of the infection, in fact, the aspirin made the bleeding happen. The man sat, Minerva walked slowly, lifted her purse, then she knocked out the bleeding man right behind his neck.

"Mac… I never deal with a bomb."

"Someone will guide you from here." He said.

"Ok."

"Miss Watson, my name is Captain Davidson, I'll guide you. First, we need some equipment. Can you manage to get something to cut?"

"My pocket knife."

"To hold the wire?"

"I have my manicure set with me, is that enough?"

Davidson stared at Stella. He didn't know what in manicure set. Stella explained to him. He nodded.

"That's enough. First, you need to get inside the air duct."

"Can you manage to do that?" asked Mac.

"I think, I'll tell Flack first, he guards the door, I just have to make sure he can assure the other three guys not to come here."

She told Flack what she's going to do. Flack eyes widen.

"Let me do that"

"You can't fit in the air duct." she added, "Just watch my back"

She tried to pull the air duct. It came off easily, for it has been remove before. She stood up, knew perfectly that her night gown would hinder her from moving inside the air duct. She held her pocket knife and said,

"You owe me a night gown, Mac" while she cut the gown into knee length.

"When this is over, I will accompany you myself to any store you want." said Mac in a grin.

"Okay, I'm ready…"

Once she inside the duct, she was taken aback by the darkness. She hated darkness, hell, she hated closed room. The haunting event flashed to her mind. She shrugged that. It's not the time for nostalgic moment.

"I find it." she said. She took her compact powder. She got an idea. From what she ever saw on TV, she might be able to dust for prints using powder.

"and Mac, you'll owe me an Anna Sui compact powder too."

"You're a very expensive date, Minerva." said Danny.

She chuckled. She managed to crush the compact into powder, then she blew the powder.

"You'll gonna love this." She took her phone, capture a very clear finger print with the camera, "Stell, I give you an early Christmas present."

***

"Any idea what she's doing there? I can only hear her breath."

"Stell, I give you an early Christmas present,"

Then Stella phone beeped, an email. Stella opened it. She grinned.

"Mac, I think we can identify our bomber." She showed him the powder-print Minerva sent.

"Send it to Hawkes. He can run that through AFIS." said Mac. "Nice going, Minerva"

"I'm not finished yet…"

***

She pulled out a cotton swab which was always in her bag along with couple gauze. She asked Stella "If I want to swab a DNA from a device, will I need an alcohol or something, or the dry swab will do?"

Stella answered her, and she managed to swab the LCD surface. She pulled out her pen, emptied the inner content, then put the cotton swab inside.

"Tell me which wire I should cut."

She described the bomb she saw inside. She told Davidson the wire, the button, the countdown. She tried to remain calm. She started to sweat. She knew she didn't have much time, and one single mistake could trigger the bomb.

After about half an hour, she managed to follow the instruction and now the final part.

"You sure, it's the blue one?"

"Of course lady, if what you describe before was true, then the wire will caused the timer to stop."

"Stella, I wanna tell you this, if something happen to me, you can have the high heel you always want."

"Don't joke like that, Minerva. It's not funny." said Stella. "And I still want that heel, even if nothing happen to you."

She took a deep breath. Then cut the blue wire. The timer stopped. She let out shrieked.

"Did it work?"

"Yes, Captain Davidson. And oh, can I have this bomb? I wanna put it in my trophy cabinet."

"Sure, we'll deliver that to you once we finish processing it. Now if you please, take the bomb and hide it somewhere safe."

"Roger."

***

Flack kept looking at the air duct. It's 30 minutes already and she hadn't shown up. No one pay attention to the backstage, the Cal guy was busy calling someone. The other two guarded the two front entrances.

He heard a light sound and saw how Minerva managed to get out from the duct, she brought something with her. She hid the bomb inside the fridge. She walked toward him.

"Mac, I need your help."

***

"What do you need?"

"Can you increase the temperature in the room?"

"What, you're freezing?" asked Danny.

"Don't mock me right now, Danny." she answered sweetly. "Flack, can you asked the Cal man to come here?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Finish this."

***

She looked pissed. Flack couldn't blame her. She whispered her plan to him. While she waited for the Cal guy to come, she asked Mac about the bomb. Mac said that the kidnappers called him.

"When?" Minerva sound alarm.

Mac answered him. "Mac, it's impossible. I watched these guys. No one use their phone at that moment."

"Then who…" realization struck him.

***

Hawkes called him that he found a hit in AFIS, and the same man was in the same list that the Manager gave to him.

"That's our man. He's the leader. Find him." said Mac.

***

As Minerva expected, the room became hot and the men started to put out their tux. Including, this Cal guy.

"What you want?" he said. He even rolled his sleeves up to elbow. Minerva smirked.

Minerva knew what she's about to do was a one and the only chance. Flack was away, he'll handle the guy in the North entrance. Minerva motioned him to come close.

"Your friend wanted to tell something." She said, pulled the syringe silently from her cleavage, opened the cap.

Cal moved closer, he watched the blood, he walked pass Minerva. In the same time, She turned around fast, held the insulin syringe, stabbed the guy in his lower arm and emptied the insulin into his body. Cal roared in anger and threw Minerva across the room. He stood before her, hold his gun.

"What did you do?"

Minerva's heartbeat rose. She could feel her adrenaline level increase. She took her hand to her thigh, pulled her gun. When she was about to shoot, Cal collapse to the floor. She let out a relieve breath. Her head was spinning like she's just got a hangover.

She was about to stood up, when another man came and pointed his gun to her.

"Drop your gun." he said. He wasn't Flack.

She dropped her Berretta. She closed her eyes, then she heard a loud thug and saw Flack. He knocked the guy with the gun he held.

"Mac, situation clear." She said before she fell down to the floor. Her feet felt like jelly, she was very relieved.

Flack opened his mask, hugged her to calm her down. She didn't do anything, but didn't reject him. Flack felt her tremble in his hug, he could hear the SWAT team emerged to the room.

He looked at her and to his surprise, a single tear ran down her cheek. She brushed it, but more tears came out.

"Oh God… I'm sorry…" she chuckled.

"Why?"

"I ended up in tears… God… I'm so embarrassed. Now, you'll think I'm a crybaby." She said.

"You just felt relieve. That's normal." He wiped her tears. "But I don't want others see your tears. Let it be only mine…" He said and kissed the top of her head.

Stella burst to the room, saw her friend and pulled her into a tight embrace.

"Never do that again!" she said to her.

Minerva whispered something, Stella managed a small laugh.

Mac stared at her. "She said that she knew why I love this job, it's tempting.", Stella explained.

Mac chuckled. Danny and Flack shared a knowing look.

"I got an early Christmas present for you too, Mac" Minerva said, pulled out a pen from her purse.

Mac gave a questioning look. She motioned him to open the back of the pen. Mac did that, and found a cotton swab inside. He smiled.

"Now you owe me a night gown, a compact powder, and a Christmas present." she said with a smile on her face.

"I'll drive you home for the starter." said Mac, offering her arm.

"Only if my date tonight doesn't mind."

Flack almost forgot he was on date with her. He stared at her. "Actually Mac, I do mind. I'll drive her home."

"See you tomorrow, Stell." she said. She stopped suddenly. "I almost forget. The bomb was in the fridge, there's one guy in the cabinet, and those guy suffer from shock, this one from hypoglycemic…"

"This guy here just got a blow on his head, and the guy at the North entrance just unconscious because I gave him a blow right in his abs." Flack continued.

"Good night…" They both left the room.

Stella stared at them. She startled by the Mac's phone.

"Taylor."

Mac stared at Stella and Danny. "We lost him. He's still out there."

***

The newspaper made the hostage situation a headline. Some papers published Minerva's picture from a random shot.

"We found her. Tell JD. Finally, after two years hunting, we might get the bridle along with the chimera."


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note: Yei… chapter 3 is finally up. Thanks for those who add this story to their story alert or favorite. I do appreciated you guys… Please Read and Review…

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these CSIs characters and villains, and CSIs plot. I only own Minerva Watson and the villains that never mention in CSI before.

Chapter 3

The Maid of Honor

"Hey Mac, over here!" called out Lindsay.

The team gathered for a drink and some chat. It's been a long time since they gathered like now. New cases came and went, however the cases form the concert hall remained in Mac's table. He couldn't say the case was over, if he couldn't get the man who planned that all. The DNA that Minerva was collected matched the finger print, confirmed both belong to Anthony Fergusso. NYPD couldn't locate him.

"So, Linds, how's Lucy doing?"

"She has 4 teeth now. And once I'm free from breastfeeding, I can drink again." said Lindsay happily.

"She started to spill her meal, though" said Danny.

The team laughed.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have special performance here from an attractive lady."

They looked at the stage and almost shocked to see the one and only Minerva Watson sat on a high chair holding an acoustic guitar.

She cleared her throat and said, "I'll try to sing a single song as a request from my dear friends. Hope I can entertain all of you. Well, at least I managed to make my friends giggle here," she said and stared at a table full of women.

She started to play her guitar and sang "Way back into love" in her soft sweet voice.*

"You never tell us she can play guitar." accused Flack to Stella.

"You never ask." said Stella calm.

"She has sweet voice." praised Lindsay.

Danny watched her, then his bestfriend. If it's even possible, that girl had just made Flack more and more into her. He just needed to make his friend confessed his feeling. And that's not an easy thing to do.

Lindsay often asked Minerva about Lucy. She often came around too, just to chat with Lindsay and him, and to play with Lucy. Once or twice, she helped them to watch Lucy, and his daughter seemed to like her. She said that she could see how Lucy was loved. She complimented them in a way that made them feel very proud. They both clueless with it came to baby, but she helped them a lot.

Danny knew Lindsay and Stella tried to nudge Flack to ask her for a date. He knew for sure that Flack had something for this girl. He was never been the same since Angell death, but now, he seemed better and alive, like he always had before. If that's because of this girl, then Danny will willingly let the girls do whatever they needed to do to make them together.

Flack couldn't utter a single word. The song was exactly what he felt right now. He knew she didn't sing the song for him, but it didn't lessen the meaning.

She almost finished with her song. She then noticed the team and smiled to them. She finished the song and awarded with a loud applause. She was blush a little then walked back to her table, her friends hugged her.

A guy moved to her table, talked to her and her friends all giggled. Seemed not only that guy who moved over to their table. Soon, the other guys tried their luck by buying the girls, Minerva to be exact, drinks.

"Wow, seemed she just got full attention from all the single guys in this club." said Stella.

"Even the no-longer single guy." added Lindsay to Danny's expression.

The girls laughed.

"She's amazing, you can't deny that." said Danny, tried to defend himself.

"Well, Messer, because it's Minerva we're talking about, I forgive you. Next time, you won't be so lucky." said Lindsay between her laugh.

"I don't doubt that," he kissed Lindsay lips lightly.

"They're leaving." said Adam.

Adam's right. The girls are leaving, they came across their table though. Minerva talked to her friends and she came to the table.

"Hey, Stell… Never thought I'll meet you here." she said while hugged her.

"Me neither." she said, returned the hug.

Minerva hugged Lindsay and smiled to the guys. Flack kept dozed off.

"You left?" asked Mac.

"Oh yeah, the girls said we need to hit another club because we can't have a private table anymore." she said.

"That's because you're a good singer. You should sing along with Mac. He's a good bass player." said Lindsay.

Minerva looked at him in awe, "Really? I should come and watch you then. Oh, and thanks for the lovely night gown, I never thought you took my words seriously."

Mac was just about to answer when,

"Hey, Minnie, let's go. The Bachelorette party hasn't over yet." one of the girls approached them.

Danny raised his eyebrow. "Whose bachelorette party?"

Minerva opened her mouth to answer, but her friend came first. "Her, of course." She said, pointed to Minerva, she stared at her. Minerva just sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Wow, congratulations." said Mac, hugged her. They all congratulated her, except Flack.

She said goodbye and left with the girls.

"Why you didn't tell us?" asked Lindsay to Stella.

Stella froze. "I didn't know too."

"I thought you were bestfriend." said Adam, Lindsay immediately kicked him under the table.

"We are." said Stella. "She called me last night, but I was already sleeping, and I forgot to return her call."

Stella and Lindsay stared at Flack. He mumbled about going home early and have shift in early morning.

"What's that about?" asked Hawkes.

Mac just chuckled, seeing the girls rolled their eyes.

***

"Hey Flack, do you have plan for next Sunday?" asked Stella.

"Nope. What's up, Stell?"

"Care to accompany me to a wedding party?" the rest of the team in the break room looked up to her.

It's been 3 days since the met Minerva in her bachelorette party.

"Minerva's weeding party?" asked Lindsay. She never guessed that Stella could be that cruel. She ought to know that Flack was avoided Minerva's subject ever since they met in the club.

"Hmm… Minerva's friend's wedding party, to be exact."

"I'm confused" said Danny.

"Well… turns out to be that the Bachelorette party we saw had a weird rule. The bride to be didn't want every guys knew she was about to marry so she could flirt and dance and kiss, then the bridesmaid and the maid of honor take turns about being the one who held the bachelorette party. The one who performed was the 'bride-to-be'. They took turn in every single club and pub they came to. So, by the time we met her in the club, she's just a decoy." explained Stella, made Flack's face lighten.

"So, if Flack couldn't manage to accompany me, then, Hawkes…"

"I have no plan. I can go with you." Flack said quickly. Stella smiled.

Mac face looked concern. "I hope we've finished with the bride case by the time you two attend the wedding party."

"Oh damn… I almost forget that. Yep, we definitely should get the wedding psycho who kidnap the bride before he ruined Minerva's party." Lindsay said.

"Minerva's friend's wedding party." corrected Danny.

"Oh, yeah. That one." she smiled.

"Isn't it weird, how could someone still wanna hold a wedding party? The media had issued this bride-kidnapper, rite?" said Danny in confuse.

"Maybe, the thriller the merrier?" suggested Hawkes.

"I don't know, though." said Stella. "Maybe they've already planned this all before the psycho made his strike?"

"Could be" said Mac in full thought, "But better warn the bride." Stella nodded to his words.

"Anyway, is she going to be bridesmaid?" asked Lindsay. She didn't have a nice ceremonial wedding party, but hers was memorable and sweet, still she's excited to all about wedding planner.

"Nope. She's the maid of honor." said Stella. "That's why she's been very busy lately, with her shift in hospital and her responsibility as maid of honor."

***

Stella came to Minerva apartment after her shift. They didn't make too much progress in the bride-kidnapper case. She'd about to warn Minerva about her friend. Mac was right. Even thought there'll be more than one wedding party, since they didn't know his pattern, all brides were possibly the next target.

She was lost in her thought that she didn't realize the door had opened before her. Minerva stood rite in front of her. She didn't want to startle her friend, so she walked away and after few feet said, "If you've finished with whatever you thought in front of my door, you may come in. I can listen to whatever you're thinking, you know? I think it's better than make a heart-to-heart conversation with my door."

Stella heard her. She smirked and apologized to her friend. She came in and sank onto the couch. Always warm, neat and smell nice, she thought. Minerva went back to the living room with 2 mugs of hot chocolate.

"So, what were you thinking? Another complicated case?" asked Minerva.

"Well… kinda." answered Stella, took the mug and felt the warmth through her hands.

"Something tells me that you're here not for a small talk."

"To be honest, yeah… I have something to tell you." Stella started. "About your friend's wedding. You all are aware about the psycho who kidnaps the brides, right?" Minerva nodded. Motioned Stella to continue. "Mac said that you should warn your friend. I agree with him. Until now, we still didn't know his MO, his pattern, even his identity. He did all his kidnapping action well planned."

Minerva sighed. She told Jeannette about this too. But this girl wouldn't listen to her, instead she said that Brian, her fiancé, would protect her. She almost regretted trying to warn the love birds.

"I told her." she said. "But, I'll try to warn her again. It's hard to warn someone who's in love about the danger that may come. They seem don't care anything. They optimist that nothing bad will happen, and when they lost the one they loved, they can only regret it. Though regret won't help bring the deceased." Said Minerva bitter.

Stella was taken aback with her words. Minerva looked at her. "Something's wrong?"

"Well…" Stella cleared her throat. Not sure what to say. "I never guessed that you can say such things."

Minerva startled, but managed to laugh lightly, "Oh… we become serious?" she said between her laugh. "Let's talk about the other topic. Wanna share what you've shared with my door before?"

Stella watched her closely. Maybe, maybe she didn't know her friend as she thought she knew her. "Hm… not much. We just can't figure out the pattern. Usually, serial crime like this has a pattern. But this one…"

Minerva thought deeply, "The bride?"

"The first and third one blonde, the second one brunette, the last one was raven." Said Stella. They've thought about that possibility too.

"And that's their original hair colour?" asked Minerva again.

Stella looked at her. Rather pierced. "Ok, forget what I said." Said Minerva, knew she just asked a stupid question.

"The crime scenes were in different places. They wore different kinds of wedding dress. Different wedding rings. Bride's background were all different. No connection at all. It's a random kidnapper."

"Stell, how about the place they bought the wedding dress?" suggested Stella.

"We thought about that too, but seem they bought from different boutique."

"Not the store then, maybe not in the wedding dress. Maybe in the wedding ring, you know maybe Tiffany's ring or…"

"That's it." Stella shouted suddenly, made Minerva almost spilled her chocolate.

"Thanks, Minerva." Stella hugged her then stormed from Minerva's apartment. Undoubtedly, went to the crime lab.

"Well… my pleasure then." muttered Minerva after a while. She shook her head and smiled a little.

***

Next day…

Lindsay went to the break room to have a coffee. She didn't have a chance for coffee that morning. She was late. Danny had a later shift, he stayed with Lucy until their babysitter came. She entered the break room just to see Stella half asleep on the chair.

She walked to coffee maker, coffee was ready. She filled her cup and another one. She took both cups and sat near Stella.

"Your coffee is ready." She whispered to Stella.

Stella opened her eyes. "Thanks." She said.

"You didn't come home?"

Stella shook her head. "I went to Minerva place, then she made me realize something about our case, then I went back here." Despite her tiredness, her voice sounded happy.

Lindsay watched her friend patiently, "I dare to say you found what you're looking for."

Stella smirked. "Of course, kiddo."

"Spill" commanded Lindsay.

Stella sipped her coffee. "We already traced their wedding dress, ok?"

Lindsay nodded, "Different colors, different style, different store."

"Exactly," said Stella.

Hawkes came to the room and joined them.

"Naturally, the boutique which sells the dress made the design themselves." Explained Stella. Lindsay's eyes lit with understanding. She can guess what Stella's said next.

"But then…" Stella trailed. Enjoying the looks from both her audiences, "Sometimes, they bought the design from certain designer. You know, like freelance."

"And…" ask Lindsay eagerly.

"And… I called those boutiques and bridal registries, and…"

"Those wedding dresses were designed by the same person, the designer who sold their design to those boutiques." Said Mac from the entrance.

All of them looked at him. Stella glared at him. "You ruined my moment." She said, tried to sound angry but her smile betrayed her.

"Great job, Stell." Praised Mac. "How do you get the idea?"

"Minerva said something about Tiffany's ring maybe not only sold in Tiffany." Explained Stella.

"Smart woman." Said Flack.

Lindsay laughed. "Is that why you haven't asked her to go out lately? She's too smart to be fooled by you?"

"Ouch," Hawkes grinned.

"Well… I'm not finished." Said Stella, returned the team to her findings. "I found the designer, but, I also found that they sold the design to the other 3 boutiques."

"You got a name?" asked Mac.

"The designer was called Belle."

"A girl?" asked Hawkes. Belle meant beauty.

Stella shrugged. "Can't say that. It's the not the real name."

"I can't think a guy who used 'Beauty' as his alias." Said Flack jokingly. The others laughed.

"So, Mac… what do you think?" asked Stella.

"Stella and Hawkes, you can ask the managers from 4 former boutiques to ask anything they can remember about the designer. Lindsay, you and I will examine the photos of those brides, hope we can find something from the dress. Flack…"

"Yeah, I know. Grabbed Danny and go to the stores which buy the designs. I'm going…" said Flack.

The team scattered. Finally, they found a lead in this case. Stella couldn't hold her broad grin. Felt proud for her and her friend's. Mac smirked at what he saw.

***

"Ok, so… Stella found out something." Said Danny after Flack picked him up.

Flack told him their informal meeting in the break room.

"So, where are we going now?"

"To the bridal registry, or boutique, or shop, or whatever that sell wedding dress." He gave Danny a piece of paper. "Here's the addresses from Stella."

"Let's go then."

***

It's almost lunch time when Danny and Flack went to the last boutique. The brought 3 pieces of wedding dress from the last two places. Only one wedding dress from Belle was sold from the previous places. They entered the last place.

This bridal registry almost the same with others. Large lobby, few armchairs, some mannequin wearing wedding dresses, large mirrors, plus… few women giggling and exciting.

They walked toward the counter and asked to meet the manager. They were having small chat about having lunch when they heard a familiar voice.

"I can't see the reason why I should wear different dress with the bridesmaid."

"That's because you're maid of honor. Humor me and get out already, Minerva."

Flack was almost jumped after heard the name. Danny smirked toward him. "What?" asked Flack, acted cool.

"Don't look back." Said Danny.

"Why?" asked Flack, ignoring Danny's words, he looked back and his jaw almost dropped.

Minerva was standing in front of large mirror, wearing a pale blue dress. The dress seemed a little bit too big for her, but it didn't hide her curve. It was a strapless dress, flowed in her hips until her ankle.

"You're drooling." Mocked Danny.

Flack closed his mouth and turned to Danny. "Shut up" he gritted his teeth.

"Hey, Minerva." Danny raised his hand and started to wave, ignoring Flack's reaction.

Minerva turned around and saw him. She smiled and tried to walk to him, unfortunately, the gown was too long so she stepped into the fabric and almost felt. Flack didn't notice this because he was still looked at Danny, but Danny noticed. He dashed toward her and grabbed her body before she bumped to the floor.

"Easy there…" he said.

Minerva was clutching to Danny's arm. Tried to steady herself. "Sorry," she mumbled.

Flack froze. He looked at Danny with dagger-eye. Danny shrugged his shoulder.

"What are you two doing in here?" she asked him as soon as she got on her feet again.

"Working." Answered Danny.

Minerva nodded in understanding.

"Minerva?" asked her friend.

"Oh, I'm sorry." She said. She introduced her friends to Danny and Flack (who already came closer).

"You found a lead then?" asked her while her friends browsed other dresses.

"Yeah, Stella found a lead. She said that…"

"Sir, I'm the manager here." A sweet voice interrupted Flack. Both men turned around and saw a middle aged woman stood before them.

They left Minerva and followed the manager to question her about the 'Belle'. They entered the manager's office which muffled the voices from the lobby. Flack almost felt disappointed. Danny didn't miss his reaction.

They got several copy-receipts from brides or brides-to-be who bought the Belle's gown. They thanked the manager and nearly came to main lobby when they heard Minerva's voice. Rather shrieked

"I'm so not gonna wear that kind of dress!" she snapped.

Flack walked slowly. Curiosity overwhelmed him. What kind of dress.

"Come on, Minnie."

"Stop it, Jeannette. Besides, I have to be in hospital in 2 hours. I don't wanna be late."

Danny just realized that he left his partner behind. Sighed. He looked at his best friend, then Minerva.

"Yo, Minerva, wants a ride? We can get you to the hospital before back to the lab." Offered Danny.

Minerva showed a relief face. "Yes, Danny. I'd love to." She almost ran to them.

"Girls, I'm so sorry, but I have to go now. We'll meet again in my apartment tomorrow morning, ok?" she winked at Jeannette.

"What about your dress?" asked Rachel, the girl who called Minerva "Minnie" at the club, noted Danny.

"You choose." She said, which rewarded her with amused smile from the rest of her friends.

She dragged Danny by hand outside. Couldn't wait to runaway from that place. Danny didn't need to drag Flack, cause he already walked toward the door and opened the door for her.

'Man, I wish I wasn't that idiot when I had a crush on Montana' Danny thought.

***

"Stella, can I borrow your invitation?" asked Lindsay later that day.

"What invitation?" asked Stella.

"Minerva's friend."

She mouthed and 'Oh' reached the invitation from her pursue. She handed it to Lindsay with an arch eyebrow.

"Just wanna make sure that she's not one of the girl who bought the Belle's wedding dress." Said Lindsay while walking back to the lab.

"Keep me posted" said Stella.

***

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."said Lindsay.

"That's mean, we have 4 possible victims." Said Mac.

Apparently, 4 women who bought the Belle's gown will held their wedding in this month. 1 of them will be held in Thursday, another in Friday, Sunday, and the last one in Tuesday next two week.

"And the one in Sunday will be…"

"Jeannette, Minerva's friend." Lindsay cut Hawkes's sentence.

"Is it just me, or this girl is attracted problem to her?" asked Mac in confused.

"She found trouble and sometimes the trouble found her, they met and they get along." Said Stella.

"What you mean?" asked Mac, curious.

"Nothing. Just something that I ever heard." Said Stella. "She got bad luck of being in the middle of our investigation since the case in her apartment."

"I think we just realize that she often in the middle of our investigation." Suggested Lindsay. "I mean, it's because we know her. If we didn't know her, maybe we'll say this was just coincidence. Besides, it's not her wedding, and the possible victim's not her either." She explained.

"That's my Montana." Said Danny from behind her.

Everyone's grinned.

"So, what do you wanna tell me about before?" asked Lindsay.

"Flack drooled."

"Yuck, that's gross Danny." Said Hawkes.

"No, I mean, he was 'drooling' like an idiot when we met Minerva in that Bridall thing." He said.

"And you didn't?" teased Lindsay.

"Nah.. .I already had you" he pulled Lindsay closer.

"Careful, kiddo, when a guy says something nice, he expects something else." Teased Stella.

The team laughed at her words. But deep inside, Stella thought about what Mac's said before, that maybe, her bestfriend will be in the middle of their case. She's just a sidekick. But no one can guarantee that she won't be collateral damage.

***

Saturday…

Nothing happened during the last two weddings. The team already warned the brides and grooms. They also put several officers to prevent the kidnapping, but nothing happened.

"Is it possible that we got the false lead?" asked Hawkes. "Sorry, Stell." He added. Stella just nodded in understanding.

She thought about that too. If it's really the right pattern, why nothing happened. However, no kidnapping occurred in the last few days too, meant the kidnapper hadn't struck again.

"We still have two possible victims." Said Mac. "Until now, we just had this clue. We'll stick to it until we find the new one."

The others agree. They knew that they still have to wait for the kidnapper to strike again. They got no other clue. It was a dead end…

***

Sunday…

"The ceremony will start in half hour. Can you check again Jeannette, dear?"

"Of course, Mrs. Hemingway" said Minerva.

She was nervous too. She cursed herself, it wasn't her wedding but she felt nervous for her bestfriend. She seldom felt nervous, even when she had to involve in an emergency surgery, but now… she didn't know why.

'Maybe because the bride-kidnaper thing' she said to herself. She knew that NYPD had put several officers as guests and some guarded the whole place to prevent the psycho.

She walked to the guest house, where the bride stayed until the ceremony began. According to tradition, the groom shouldn't meet with the bride before the ceremony. Minerva imagined that Harold would be surprised to see Jeannette. She looked dashing.

She knocked at the door. No one answered. She called Jeannette. Still no answered. She pushed the door opened. Minerva was surprised to see her friend laid flat on the floor. She rushed to her friend, wondered if she was fainted due to her nervousness… some people did when they were panicked.

She knelt beside her friend and tried to check her pulse, when suddenly she felt someone squeezed her and then she felt something on her neck, then everything's went black.

***

Harold stood nervously in front of the altar. Jeannette's father already went to the guest house to pick her up and soon, they would walk down the aisle. He heard footsteps, wondered whether he just imagined it or it's true that someone's running instead of walking.

The door was opened suddenly. Mr. Hemingway was breathless. He tried to say something. But even if he hadn't said anything, Harold knew something bad happened to his bride.

"She's gone…" he managed to tell.

Stella and Flack alerted. The kidnapper. They rushed toward the guest house. Flack used his radio and told the others the situation.

Stella dashed ahead Flack. She found the guest room was opened wide. To her horror, she saw a body laid on the floor. The auburn hair with long silver dress. She knew right away, it's her best friend.

"Minerva" she shouted while she entered the room and knelt before her. Her dress was disarray. The back strap was untied, the dress was pulled up and showed her thigh.

Stella felt the pulse. She let out a sigh. She notice a small, linear scratch on Minerva's back. Her friend was unconscious. She noticed two burned marked on her neck. The psycho used stun gun.

Flack hurried to them, he stood close. He did what he never did before in crime scene, he looked away. Felt uneasy of Minerva's state. Anger rose inside him.

The EMT arrived. They was about to take Minerva to hospital when her eyes flushed open. She groaned softly, mumbled about headache.

Stella supported her back so she can half seated. Minerva was about to tie the strap when Stella held her hands.

"I'm sorry, Minerva, but I think we can get something from your dress."

"The prints?" Minerva managed to answer. Her voice sounded weak.

Stella nodded. "You understand, don't you?"

Minerva gave a weak smile. She nodded. Flack handed her his tux to cover her top.

"Lindsay will help you." She said again. Minerva said nothing. She closed her eyes. She felt her head throbbed badly.

***

As soon as she's arrived, Lindsay was asked to take Minerva to the lab. The paramedic team hadn't assessed her, but Stella said that she would take her to Hospital as soon as they examined her clothes for the trace that might be left by the psycho.

"You okay?" Lindsay asked the woman in the passenger seat.

"Yeah. I'm okay." She said.

"What happened?" she asked.

Minerva said what she remembered before she fainted. Lindsay listened intensely. She thought about something.

"Minerva, I wonder if I can…" she trailed off. Minerva looked at her and smiled, gestured her to continue, "Do you mind if I dust you for prints?"

"Excuse me?" she said, surprised.

"It is possible that the suspect left his print when he pushed you. And maybe we'll be able to lift some prints."

"From my skin?"

Lindsay nodded. "But we have to lower the temperature now, to avoid you're sweating."

Minerva looked hesitant. She nodded.

"The weather is cold lately, so I guessed even if there's sweat, it won't destroy the prints." She remembered something. "Oh, and we need to take photos from the stun gun mark on your neck."

Minerva sighed. "I figured, I'm the evidence, right now."

Lindsay chuckled. "Witness."

Minerva silent. "Nah…" she said after thought a while, "I'm evidence. I don't remember anything unless what I told you before. So, my body and dress can give you more clue than my testimony, means… I'm more useful as evidence." She said lightly.

Both of the women said nothing, then burst out to laugh after few seconds.

"We'll have fun." Lindsay said.

"I guess we will." Approved Minerva.

***

"You guys got something from the crime scene?" asked Lindsay while entering the room.

"I hate your tone" said Stella, made Lindsay giggled. "What you have?" she asked.

"A lot." Said Lindsay again.

Hawkes groaned in frustration. "How could?" he asked.

"Don't be so sure, sweetheart." Said Danny, "I got clue"

"Oh yeah? Let's see?" she crossed her arms in front of her chest.

"Did I miss something?" asked Mac.

"Not yet, come." Said Stella. "We're going to watch the Messers' battle in evidence."

"Don't' play around with evidence." Smiled Mac.

"Ok, I got the list from all the possible suspects." He started. "No one entered the location without being checked."

"Means, our suspect was one of the guests" said Hawkes.

"or the caters staff" added Stella.

"or the wedding organizer's" added Lindsay, smirked at her husband.

"Wo… easy there, Montana. I'm not finished yet." He said. "Half an hour before the ceremony, the last person talked with Minerva was the bride's mother. She asked Minerva to check the bride, and within that time, no guest left their chair, or entered the room. Means, we can excluded the guests from our suspect list."

"Well.. that's leave us how many?" Lindsay challenged him, "100 or more people?"

Danny held a shoe print. "Nope, if I can help it." He added. "Our suspect is a guy. With shoes size 11. We can bring all the staff, and matched their shoes."

"Good work, Danny." Said Mac.

"Beat that, Montana!"

"Owh… you challenged me" said Lindsay. "Well, I examined Minerva clothes. I found partial prints. I dusted her for prints…"

"Wait… wait, what did you say?" cut Hawkes.

"I dusted her for prints." Lindsay repeated.

"Her? By means, her body?" he asked again.

Lindsay rolled her eyes. "Her skin." She tried to suppress her laugh from Hawkes and Danny's face.

"You both look like you haven't done that before" stated Stella.

"She allowed you?" asked Hawkes. Didn't care how many times he dusted cadaver for prints, he still felt awkward to dust a living, most specifically a woman, for prints.

"Shall I continue?" the others nodded. "Then, I got a palm print. Which gives me clue that the psycho is left handed. He wore wristwatch in his right hand."

"Why do you think he's left handed?" asked Mac.

"Care for demonstration?" said Lindsay.

Mac laughed. "Be my guest."

"Well, Stell, I need you to kneel down." Stella obeyed. "See, if I tried to pinned her down and stun her, I will use my left hand to hold her shoulder, and I will leave my palm print on the right side of her shoulder, then I will hold my stun gun with my right hand, then the burn mark will be on the right side of her neck."

"But," she continued after Stella stood up, "The burn mark on Minerva's neck was on the left side, and I lift the palm print from her left shoulder. Means, he held the stun gun with his left hand."

"Did you get a hit?" asked Danny.

"Nope." Danny grinned. "But…" she glared at Danny, "I can guarantee that the man bring out Minerva's DNA."

"The scratch" said Stella.

Lindsay glanced at her, smile in triumph "Yeps. His watch scratched Minerva's skin, bring along her DNA." She added. "And the good part is, I'm sure he doesn't recognize it."

"And… I run the burn mark from the stun gun. Still haven't got a hit."

"So, care to say who win?" Danny asked Stella, Hawkes, and Mac.

"Lindsay." Said Stella

"Danny." Said Hawkes.

All looked at Mac. "No one." He said.

"Ah… Mac, come on." Said Stella.

"No one can give me a name." he said. "Besides, the information from both of you completed each other." He explained.

"I guess I have to admit." Said Stella, "You two are a perfect couple. Even the evidence proves that."

Danny and Lindsay looked at each other, both felt pride for their spouse.

"Let's locate our suspect then." Said Mac.

"Linds, you didn't say something about the sexual examination." Stella asked her quietly when they walked to the DNA lab. "They found nothing?"

Lindsay sighed. "I didn't say that before, because, actually Minerva refused to do that."

"Why?" Stella confused. "Her condition, I mean, when I found her, her clothes were…" she trailed off, "and the time, the psycho had time to…"

"Stell," Lindsay stopped her. "She said she wasn't bleeding"

Stella opened her mouth, then closed it again. "Oh" she just said that weakly.

***

Minerva laid flat on her bed. What a day, she sighed. She still worried about Jeannette.

'Where is she now?' she wondered.

She went back home straight from the hospital. She couldn't call Jeannette parents or Harold, yet. She needed time to remember what happened before. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't remember anything than she already told the CSIs.

She hadn't had dinner. Her stomach growled. She should eat something. She was about to stand up, when her phone rang. She reached to the side table and read the name on the LCD.

"Watson" she answered.

"How are you feeling?" a masculine voice replied in worried.

"Fine. As fine as the one who had been stunned before." She said.

"Oh"

"Are you worried about me, Detective Flack?" she asked.

"Yeah. Of course I'm worried." He heard her laugh softly. "Why?"

"Nothing." She answered. "Just wondering, maybe that's why you're popular with girls. Suspects, victims, or witnesses, you cared about them."

Flack chuckled. "I care because it's you."

No answer. "Hello?"

"Oh yeah." She managed to say. "I'm flattered." She said.

"Actually," he took a deep breathe before continue, "I'm right in front of your door right now."

Minerva gasped. "Why didn't you say that earlier?"

She walked toward her door, opened it, and found Flack smile and offered her his best smile. Minerva moved slightly, gave him room to enter her apartment. That is the first time Flack saw those beautiful eyes of her.

***

Three days had passed. The team already narrowed their suspect list. Only three guys left. They had no alibi, wore shoes size 11, left handed. Seemed perfect. But still, no one had stun gun that was used in crime scene. The owner of the stun gun said that he lost it almost a year ago. Dead end from the stun gun.

The three guys are one from the cater staff, one from wedding organizer, and the last one was the administrator of the guest house. No one wore wristwatch when they were being interrogated. The palm print matched with one of them. He claimed that he touched Minerva when she was almost fell from the stairs. When Stella confirmed that to Minerva, she said she did was about to fell from the stairs, but she couldn't remember who helped her or how.

The last piece of evidence, and the key piece of evidence was the watch. Mac instructed Danny and Hawkes to go back to the crime scene and re-examined the scene, in case the watch was somewhere near the scene.

Meanwhile, Flack and Mac went to Deryl's, the guy from wedding organizer, house. The palm print was enough for a warrant.

"Mr. Connor?" Mac knocked at his door.

"Yeah?" Deryl came out. Looked sleepy. "What do you want now?" he asked.

Flack gave him the warrant. The guy looked pissed, but he let the detectives did their job. They searched the house for less than 2 hours, when Flack found something in the laundry room.

"Looks like you forget to take your watch from your laundry." He shouted.

Deryl just shot him a cold look. "I bought a new watch. I thought I lost that one."

"Well, if you don't need this one, we'll take it now." Said Mac. "We think we'd like to keep this watch"

***

"Adam, swab this watch to DNA, and compare it with Minerva's." said Mac immediately, as they arrived at the lab. "We had her DNA from the previous case, right?" Adam nodded.

"I'll let you know when I got the result" he answered. :"It's priority, right?" he added before Mac had chance to speak.

Mac nodded in agreement, then left to his office.

Adam swab the watch, he found epithelial. He ran the DNA against Minerva's.

Few hours later, he heard a beep. "No match" he muttered. Then, he looked the DNA closely.

"It can't be…" he wondered. "But maybe…"

He rushed towards Mac's office. Stella and Mac were there. He knocked the office. Mac looked up and motioned him to come in.

"Any hit?" he asked.

"No match with Minerva." He said. Mac and Stella clearly looked disappointed. "But.." he continued. "The DNA on the watch had similar alleles with Minerva's."

Mac raised his eyebrow. Stella frowned.

"Stella, do you know if, maybe, Minerva has a sister?" asked Adam.

Stella was hesitant before answered. "I… I'm not sure." She confessed. "She told me that she was the only child."

"Is it possible, maybe, she has a sister, but she doesn't know about her?" asked Mac.

Stella nodded in agreement. "Maybe…"

At that time, Lindsay and Danny came in. "Hey!"

"We got something?"

"Yeah, Adam's found DNA from the watch" said Mac.

"That's good," said Danny, then he saw the looked on his co-workers, "or not?"

"The DNA didn't match with Minerva's" said Stella.

"But showed some similar alleles with hers." Said Adam. "But Stella said she's the only child. So maybe, she has an unknown sister. A step sister, maybe."

Lindsay thought for a while, then she said "Maybe that's not her sister."

Everyone in the room looked at her. "Excuse me?" asked Mac.

"Maybe that's her DNA"

"But Linds, Adam said that it's not her DNA." Said Stella. "Do you think he made a mistake?" Adam frowned to this statement.

"No," said Lindsay quickly. "He didn't make any mistake. The DNA sample did."

"Honey, you're confusing us." Danny said.

"Look," she tried to explain. "What did you compare the DNA with?" she asked Adam.

"Minerva's epithelial from her case few months ago." Answered Adam.

"The DNA sample was from her hand, right?" Adam nodded in confusion.

"Danny, remember what I told you about she is a chimera?" said Lindsay.

Danny nodded. Still didn't get what's Lindsay's meaning. But Adam understood.

"You can't mean that…" he trailed off. Looked at Lindsay, who nodded. "But it's a rare case" he said again.

Mac cleared his throat. "Lindsay, care to explain?" he asked.

"Sure," said Lindsay cheerfully. "Stell, you know that she is a heterochromatic, right?" Stella nodded.

"Her left eye is grey and her right eye is green." Stella informed Mac and Adam. Both men just nodded. Adam looked like he just found the last puzzle but restrained himself from explaining because Lindsay shot him a piercing look.

"So, I was curios to know about them, then I did some research." She explained. "I found out heterochromatic can only occur in several conditions. Genetic or disease." She inhaled, then continued, "Since Minerva is not having difficulty with her eyes, so she got her eyes from genetic. And… there are two possibilities,"

"Mosaics or chimera." Said Adam.

"Yes." Responded Lindsay. "Then I remembered how she insisted to swab the epithelial from her hand instead of her cheek cell. I realized that she might be a chimera. Not a mosaics." She finished.

"I still don't understand what a chimera is." Said Danny.

"I think Adam can explain that." Said Lindsay.

Adam was amused. He gave Lindsay a 'thank you' look. "Chimera was fusion of fraternal twin."

His audiences frowned, except Lindsay who looked satisfied. "That's mean that Minerva, in this case, had a twin sister before. But then they fused when they were still in cells state." He saw that his audiences still looked confused.

"Okay, let's simplify this." He suggested. "Let's say Lindsay and Stella are fraternal twin, ok?" everyone's nodded. "So, it is usual that they have different eye colors, different hair color's, even different DNA, right?" nodded again.

"In chimera case, those differences are fused into one body."

"Wait, do you mean that Minerva carried two different DNA in her body?" asked Mac.

Lindsay and Adam nodded.

"That's why they named them Chimera." Said Stella.

Everyone's turned to her. "Well, Chimera, in Greek mythology, is a creature which had lion head, goat body, and serpent tail."

"That makes sense, so maybe…" Danny added, "maybe Minerva has two different DNA."

"And the DNA from the watch is her DNA, not her sister's." Said Mac.

Silent…

"Wow, I never guessed I'll encounter case like this." Said Adam. "Chimera is a rare kind."

"So is Minerva." Said Stella thoughtful.

"Yeah, she is a rare kind." Said Mac in agreement.

"So, we need to get her DNA sample," Lindsay thought then, corrected, "another DNA sample. This time we have to get the DNA from her back, right?" she asked Adam.

Adam nodded.

"I'll have Flack pick her up." Said Mac.

***

Flack was confused at first. Why they need DNA sample from Minerva, again. Mac gave him a brief explanation about she carried two different type of DNA like she had two different eye's color. Flack nodded, even if he wasn't sure he understood fully.

Flack had to wait 2 hours before she finished her shift. She looked tired and sleepy, but she agreed to go to the crime lab. She didn't question why she had to give another DNA sample.

'Of course she knew it already.' Flack thought.

"So, you have two type of DNA in you?" Flack asked.

She smiled and shrugged, as if it was a normal thing. "Weird, huh?"

"Weird?" Flack thought for a moment. "Nope." He added. "Special is the right expression."

She smiled gently at him. "Special." She thought. "I like that."

"Yeah," Flack said without thinking, "me too."

Minerva stared at him. Wondering if the detective meant what she thought about his words.

"Thank you." She said before she drifted to sleep.

Flack glanced at the attractive lady.

'You are a very special woman, even if you're not a chimera.' He thought.

***

"It's a match." Adam announced the team in the break room.

Everyone's looked up. "We got him" said Mac. "Nice job, Adam." He praised the young lab tech.

Adam was glad.

"Danny, take Flack and pick our guy." Said Mac.

"Done." Said Danny, walking out from the break room.

***

They didn't find Deryl Connor in his house. His neighbor told that he didn't show up since the day before. Danny contacted Mac and asked if he could locate Deryl from GPS. They tracked his cells.

"He was in the warehouse" Mac informed him.

Flack requested back up, and they all went to the address Mac told him.

The warehouse looked abandoned. Deryl was inside the warehouse. The SWAT team cornered him. They found the brides in cooler room. Two of them already froze. The other three were severely cold.

Deryl Connor or Belle was a psycho. He made wedding dress and intended to freeze the brides in their wedding dress. He didn't kidnap the two other brides because the wedding dresses were a failure. He intended to kidnap the last bride next Tuesday.

2 weeks later, Jeannette insisted on having her wedding reception. It was much simpler than her last wedding ceremony. She wore her mother's wedding dress. She invited the CSIs team, knew that they were the one who saved her. Minerva still became her maid of honor, however she wore her own peach knee-length cocktail dress since her former dress still kept in the evidence room in the crime lab.

Everyone was gathered in the Hemingways' garden for the reception. Flack was about to go to the bathroom when he heard a soft violin sound from the balcony. He walked closer. Listened from outside the door. He stared at the feminine figure who played the violin. She played a popular song, 'Dance with my father again'.

Flack noticed tears rolling down her cheek as she played that song. He stayed there, listening to her play and watching her crying. She finished played the song, and took a deep breathe. Before she could manage to wipe her tears, Flack came in.

"You're crying again." He stated.

Minerva glanced at him. She was about to wipe her tears, when Flack held her hand. "Don't." he said.

He move his hands, cupped her face, then wiped her tears with his thumbs. "Why are you crying?" he asked softly.

"Why do you always see me cry?" she asked him.

Flack smiled. "Because God knows that I'm the one who should wipe your tears."

Minerva laughed softly.

"You haven't answered my question." Said Flack.

She looked Flack right in his eyes. "It's not a big deal, really." Flack raised his eyebrow, he didn't buy her story. Minerva sighed before gave up and explained, "I saw Jeannette walking down the aisle. She had her father walked beside her." She paused. "I just wondered, when I walk down the aisle, my father won't be there with me. I'll walk the aisle myself."

Her words were sincere. Flack could felt her sadness. "My father will walk with you." He said. And before he could stop himself, he continued, "and I will stay, waiting for you, by the end of your walk."

Minerva gasped. She was about to say something, when Flack lift her chin and lowered his head. Locked his promise in a sweet tender kiss.

***

Notes:

So… what do you think??? I'm not good in fluffy thing. Hehehe. I'm not sure though whether they can lift prints from human's skin. And, I got the idea of Danny-Lindsay's battle from CSI Miami, Calleigh and Ryan. I forgot which episode.

*I got this idea from Sabrina's song: Way back into love in acoustic version


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note: This chapter will be a crossover with Rush. I borrowed one of the characters. Michael Sandrelli. In my fan fiction, he is 26 years old. Two years older than Minerva. I got the inspiration from random story. So, if you find any similarity, believe me, I do borrow those ideas. Hope they don't mind. By the way, there won't be any case in this chapter. Besides, I think I'm suck at making the case. Lol….

Disclaimer: I own Minerva Watson, the others??? They're not mine. Huks…

Chapter 4

Caught up with the past

Melbourne, Australia…

"I can't believe you decided to move out." Mrs. Sandrelli commented her youngest son.

Her son just laughed. He was holding something, when he asked her. "Mom, what's this? I don't remember having this thing."

His mother just shrugged. He opened the package. Found a flat device. A letter dropped from the package. He read that, then he switch on the device. A blue dot appeared on the monitor. He gasped.

"Minnie…" he said slowly.

***

Flack was annoyed. His co-workers could be very insensitive for sometime. Nothing's happened between Minerva and him after he kissed her. Not much, actually. He just more often came by to her apartment. They sometimes had drinks together. Now, when he intended to have a proper date, his co-workers decided to join in.

"Flack, I thought you are happy to spend the night with Minerva." Said Danny.

Flack nudged him on the ribs. Danny chuckled, saw him pissed.

"Shut up Messer. I promise you, I'll find out who had this idea at the first place." He said in gritted teeth.

"Relax, Flack. We just wanna help you." Said Hawkes.

"Yeah." He said sarcastically, "Like I need one."

He smiled when the red hair girl glanced at him. She wore a nice white sweater with jeans. She managed to pull her hair into high ponytail. She looked enjoying the get-together thing, though. She chatted happily with Adam, Mac, Lindsay and Stella. Not noticing him miserable because his perfect date plan was destroyed by his co-workers. She said she was going to get more drinks for everyone. He volunteered to help her.

'Finally, I can talk with her, just the two of us' he thought.

"So, you're having fun?" he asked when they were waiting for the order at the bar.

She smiled at him. "Yes. Are you?" she asked him.

"Yeah… kinda" he answered.

Her phone rang. "Excuse me," she said. Flack nodded.

Minerva looked at an unknown number. "Hello?" she answered tentatively. Flack noticed her tone and watched her carefully.

"Hello Princess." She heard a baritone voice.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Ouch, I'm hurt." The voice responded. "You forget my voice? I know it's been two years, but…"

"Mickey?" she sounded enthusiastic now.

"Of course, Minnie, who else called you princess?" Michael laughed.

"Oh my God… How do you get my number?"

"Hm… I don't know." He said. "It's just popped out in my head. Oh, by the way, I like your long hair. I told you, you look nice in high pony tail."

Minerva froze. 'He's here' she thought. She looked around the pub. 'Where's he?' she wondered.

Flack watched her. 'She's looking for someone. Who?' he wondered. He noticed that her voice was much relaxed now.

"I'm freezing outside here. No one told me that the winter in New York comes early this year" He said jokingly as the fall season in New York this year was colder than any other time.

Minerva shot a look at outside. She managed to find a familiar figure outside the club, then ignoring Flack curious look, she stormed outside. Not noticing her friends were watching her with confusion.

She didn't bother to grab her coat of her scarf, she just dashed through the door. Flack followed her. She found him right there. She didn't think much, she hurried toward him and almost knocked him down when she hugged him.

Flack was surprise. Minerva just stormed and hugged a guy. They both laughed. The guy held her tight and lifted her body. She giggled. Flack tried his best to suppress her anger.

"Who is he?" he thought he said that out loud, but found out that It was Stella who talked.

"I don't know." He said.

The next thing was almost made Danny and Hawkes dragged Flack from the doorstep as he was about to march to the couple.

'Can't blame him, though' thought Danny.

They saw the mysterious guy planted a kiss on Minerva forehead, and she returned the kiss on his cheek. The man whispered her something, maybe about 3 guys and 1 woman looked intensely at them.

"Oh my God, I almost forget." Minerva sneezed.

"You forget your coat. Let's go inside." Michael suggested. He wrapped his hand across Minerva's shoulder, pulled her closer to him.

Saw them approached, the four of them walked back to their table. Minerva came inside. She walked toward their table. To Flack angered, they still holding hands.

"Everyone, this is Michael Sandrelli. He is my friend…"

"Friend?" cut Michael.

"My best friend." Offered Minerva, mischief twinkled in her eyes, something that Flack never saw before.

"I thought I am your bestfriend." Said Stella, tried to sound hurt.

"You are, Stell." Said Minerva. "So, Mickey," she paused, "sorry, Michael is my very very best friend." She chuckled when Michael gave her a jokingly-annoyed look.

She introduced him to everyone in the table. Flack was tried his best to shake Michael's hand instead of tried to break his hand.

He sat with them, and Flack was jealous as he sat next to Minerva and he noticed that he didn't let her hand go. Minerva told him about the team, he listened intensely, or rather, he watched Minerva, intensely.

Minerva noticed that no matter how hard Michael managed to look fresh, he looked very tired. Then she realized that he had jet lag.

"Everyone, I'm so sorry, but I think I should call this a night. Mickey, " she paused again, "Michael suffers from jet lag, " she shot a quick look at him when he was about to argue. "so I guessed, we better go home early. I'm having fun tonight. Thanks." She hugged all of them.

Michael shook everyone's hand and bid a goodbye. They saw two of them walked toward the door. Michel helped Minerva wore her coat, then he put her scarf around her neck and tucked a strand of hair which falling from the ponytail.

"They are cute" said Stella. Almost forgot about Flack. She cleared her throat when Flack shot her a dirty look.

Lindsay and Stella watched Flack. He noticed that. And he acted like nothing's happened. He stayed with them, when they agreed to call that a night, he dragged Danny and said that he wanted to have a talk the next day with him.

***

"How could you be so sure that I will let you stay at my apartment?" Minerva asked as she handed Michael extra pillow and blanket.

"I just know you too well." He said. Looking at his childhood friend. She hadn't changed a lot, but sure, she looked more mature, more beautiful. "Come here," he motioned Minerva to sit next to him.

She obeyed. "Do you miss me?" he asked. Minerva looked up to him.

She smiled. "I miss everyone." She said in her sad tone.

Michael embraced her. She didn't notice it first, but then gave in to her emotion and let her tears fell. Michael cuddled her tighter. He caressed her back, comforting her.

She finally fell asleep after few moments. He took her to her bedroom, pulled a cover over her, then went back to the living room, where he slept on the couch.

The next morning, Minerva awoke with strange feeling. She thought she had a dream about her childhood friend. She walked toward her living room to see that she wasn't dreaming. She took a nice shower, changed her clothes, and prepared to go to work.

She shook Michael, lightly. "Hey," she greeted him.

"Hey" he said, sound sleepy.

"You can move to my bedroom." She said. "It's more comfortable there. I should get to work."

Michael walked to her bedroom. He inhaled her scent, and fell asleep instantly. Minerva prepared a breakfast for them. She was about to put the readily pancakes over the table when her bell rang.

She opened the door just to find Flack.

"Hey." She greeted him with a broad smile.

"Hey" he answered, rather mumbling.

"Wanna come inside?" she offered.

"Ehm, where's…" Flack paused. "where is your friend?"

"Oh, he's still sleeping, but don't worry he's in my bedroom, so we can chat in dining room or living room." She tried to comfort Flack.

Instead, her words made Flack more and more jealous. "He's sleeping in your bedroom?" he asked.

Minerva frowned. "I told you that."

"Let's have breakfast." He held her hand.

"I already made breakfast." She answered. "You can join us if…"

"Outside." Flack insisted.

"Oh, okay. But, I need to take my bag and coat." Flack let her hand go. "Oh, and I need to leave Michael a card, just let him know where I'm going." She added innocently.

"Yeah… yeah… you do whatever you need to do." Flack cursed under his breath.

***

Flack drove to her hospital. He stopped his car in the parking lot, then, almost dragged her to the cafeteria. Minerva was lost in thought. She tried to figure out why Flack acted barbaric like this. She concluded something, she tried to hide her smirk. She decided to enjoy his emotion and played the game.

They ordered their breakfast and sat on the corner table.

"Are you alright?" she asked him.

He couldn't believe his ears. "Yeah, yeah…" he said. "Why you asked that?"

"Because you act very peculiar" she answered as-a-matter-factly.

"I just wanna have a breakfast with you, is that weird?" he asked her back.

She gave him a genuine smile, "No. Of course no. I'm sorry, I'm just worry about you."

Flack realized that she was sincere. "I'm sorry. I'm kinda not feeling myself, lately." He added. 'Since last night' he muttered in heart.

"Complicated case?" she asked.

Flack nodded. 'Yeah, who the hell is the Michael guy and why you didn't say anything about the kiss.' He mentally spoke.

She placed her hand on top of his, gave him a light squeeze. "You'll find the answer." She said. "I know you will." She added, "You have a wonderful CSIs behind your back. And you're a good detective, yourself. Have faith in yourself, will you?"

"Do you have plan tonight?" the words just spurted out.

Minerva looked hesitant. She watched him intensely. "I'm afraid yes." She said. "Michael came here to see me, and I think it's not a good thing to let him wanders by himself. Besides, we have a lot to catch up. So I think I won't be able to join you all for a few times."

She mistaken his invitation with the get-together thing. He took a deep breath, and gave her a smile which didn't reach his eyes. "It's ok." He stopped. "Next time?"

She nodded. "Next time."

***

"Yo, Flack. I got something for you." Said Danny.

"What's that, Messer?" he asked.

Danny sensed trouble. "You okay?"

"Why everybody's asked whether I'm okay?" Flack burst out. "Do I look I'm not okay?"

"Hey… Relax, buddy." Danny tried to calm him down. "You said you wanted to talk to me." He reminded him.

"Yeah, sorry Dan." He sat on the chair. "I'm not feeling myself."

"Really? I don't notice that." His best friend replied in sarcasm.

"So what you have for me?" he pointed at what Danny said before, ignoring his sarcasm. "We got suspect?"

Danny confused for a moment, then he remembered. "Nah… not the case. I did some research on that Michael guy we met last night" he said.

"and…" he sounded eagerly now. 'Maybe he's a criminal. Then I will have reason to put him into custody and make sure that his case won't reach the court.' He thought.

"He is a cop." Said Danny. "A member of tactical response unit, to be exact"

Flung hung his head down. No chance.

"You like her, don't you?" Danny asked. Flack said nothing. Still cursing that Michael guy inside his heart.

"Oi!" Danny snapped. Flack looked at him. "What?" he asked.

"Man… you really do love her." Danny accused him.

Flack raised his eyebrow. "I don't understand." He denied.

"Drop that act, Flack." Danny scolded him. He couldn't help to grin "I can tell that you love her that badly. You look like an idiot, you know."

"Say that to yourself when you're all over Monroe." Replied Flack.

"Anyone said my name?" Lindsay came over just right in time. Danny swore under his breath. Tried to warn Flack not to repeat his words.

"Did both of you ignore me?" she asked, walking to the fridge and take a bottle of water.

"Nah, we just having this guy talk." Said Danny.

"A guy talk, and one of you mention my name?" Lindsay raised her eyebrow.

"Linds, do me a favor and just continue on whatever you're doing, ok?" begged Flack.

Lindsay looked at Danny. He shrugged his shoulder and gestured he didn't know what happen with his best friend, either. Lindsay gave him a tell-me-the-whole-story-later look. Danny gave a weak nod.

"Ok, Donald." Just then, she realized something. She chuckled, rewarded her with questioning looks from both the guys.

She shook her head in disbelieving, she waved to them and left the room. Still had that small giggle.

"She's nut sometimes." Flack gave Danny a crazy sign.

"Yeah…" approved Danny. "Do you think I didn't know that?"

"So," said Flack, "back to that Michael guy. Is he married?"

Danny chuckled. "You wish, buddy." He continued. "No, he's not married yet. Don't ask me whether he has girlfriend or not, the data didn't mention that."

"So, he's a member of Australian Tactical Response Unit, and?"

"Nothing's odd from his file." He paused. "Why don't you ask him directly?" suggested Danny.

"Yeah, that would be fun." Said Flack sarcastically. "Hey Michael, I wonder what the hell your relationship is with Minerva, and when will you go back to your continent, cause New York is too crowded for both of us." He snapped. "That will be perfect."

Danny shook his head repeatedly. "You should see yourself."

Both of them were silent for a moment. "Hey, why don't you ask Stella?" Danny came up with another idea.

Flack stared at him. "I mean, you can ask her to ask Minerva about Michael" explained Danny.

"Yeah.. Yeah.." Flack thought. "That's better." He paused. "Thanks, Danno" he added and left his beaming best friend.

***

Minerva spent that night talking with Michael. There're a lot of thing to be shared. Michael was her neighbor. They grew up together. He was just 2 when she was born. Their parents were friends, they often played bridge in Minerva's house.

Minerva knew all Michael's siblings. They used to play together. When Michael entered police academy, they often chatted by phone. Until that Halloween night two years ago. He came for her parents' funeral, he tried to talk to her, but she said she needed time to be alone. She brushed anyone. But Michael was always there. He waited until she was ready to talk to him.

But that day never came. She disappeared six month after that. No one knew where did she go. Michael didn't know too. Then he found that package. He's not sure whether he should tell her about the package. Maybe he should keep the story from her.

"You never told me anything about that night." He started, looking at the smaller figure next to him.

"I don't know what to say, Mickey." She said honestly. "Besides, it's not like you don't know what happened."

Michael nodded. He heard the gun shots, he shouted at her to hide, but he never knew what really happened.

"Do you know why?" he asked.

"I guess I figured that out."

"Is that why you go?"

"Yeah." She took a deep breath. "Yeah, it's for everyone's best."

Michael snapped at this statement. "Everyone?" he repeated. "What do you mean?" he suddenly remembered something, "Is this something to do with Helena's death?"

Minerva was stiffen, then she looked at him deeply. "Michael, I'm not sure if I can tell you now, but I hope you trust me that I do know what I'm doing."

Michael sighed. He knew he couldn't force her to talk. "Ok. But promise me something." She tilted her head. "promise me that you will tell me whole story when you think the time is right. I will wait until that time."

She wrapped her hands around his neck, nodded weakly. Michael whispered softly, "I love you, you know that, right?"

She nodded. "Me too, Michael. Me too"

He rested his chin on her head. Caressed her back like he always did when they were teenagers.

***

Stella was doing her paperwork when she received that email. She read the email twice. Then she called Lindsay to come to her office. She waited for the younger woman.

"You called me?" Lindsay said while entering the office.

"Yeah." Said Stella. "We got a dinner invitation from Minerva for tomorrow night."

"We?"

"Yeah, You, Danny, Lucy, Hawkes, Sid, Adam, Flack, Mac, and me." Stella folded her fingers as she spoke.

"So, you managed to ask her a thing or two about his guy?" Lindsay took a seat in front of her friend.

Stella shook her head. "Sadly, no." she continued. "She didn't have much time, lately. She said she was quite busy with her job and then she still had to arrange some lunch with her friends. She said that Michael wants her to introduce all her friends to him. We got the last chance"

"Last?"

"He'll leave the day after tomorrow."

Lindsay mouthed an 'Oh'.

"What do you think of him?" asked Lindsay.

"Michael?" asked Stella. Lindsay nodded. "I don't know, Linds. Minerva rarely talked about herself, or her past. I know that her parents died when she was 22. She's the only child. She came here to find new life. Apart from that, I don't know." Confessed Stella.

"Do you think they had history?" she insisted.

"I think so," she said. "But… I don't think it's a romantic story."

Lindsay raised her eyebrow. "You think so too?"

"'too'?" Stella asked her. "So, you?"

"Yeah. Me too. Danny doesn't buy it though, he said that no way that a guy will act like that if he doesn't love the woman." She rolled her eyes.

"Honestly, boys." Stella said. "You thought they will have better opinion because they are investigators? Don't expect that."

Lindsay chuckled. "So, it's woman's instinct then?"

"I dare to say so." She said.

"Poor Flack." Said Lindsay.

"Yeah," then Stella just remembered something. "Do you know that he kissed Minerva on Jeannette's wedding?"

Lindsay's eyes widened. "No," she gasped. "Minerva told you?"

Stella smiled. "Yeah. She told me, accidentally."

Stella told Lindsay how Minerva was tried to bring out new topic to avoid Stella's questions about the detail. Lindsay was amused. Stella was a nice story teller, she can make the story sounded lively. They laughed, giggled, and chuckled.

"Oh, yeah…" Lindsay said something between her laughter. "Do you realize the Disney's thing between them?"

Stella looked confused. Lindsay grinned happily. "Minerva is called 'Minnie', right?" Stella nodded. "He called Michael, 'Mickey'"

"Yeah, that makes them famous couple of Mickey and Minnie Mouse" said Stella. "I bet that's their parents' idea."

"I'm not done yet, Stell," cut Lindsay. "And what's Flack's first name?" she said.

Stella was silent for a while, then she chuckled. "Donald." She stared at Lindsay.

Lindsay let out a laugh. She nodded furiously. "I never thought about that until I called him 'Donald'. Do you think this whole thing is coincidence?" she asked Stella.

Stella laughed with her. "Poor Donald, he doesn't have a chance of Minnie."

Lindsay added. "But we will make our Donald get a chance, right?"

Stella couldn't agree more.

***

Stella announced the dinner invitation to the team. They received that happily and Mac, always be rational, or rather crasher, spoke, "Hope we won't have complicated case at that time." The team scolded at him.

"Yeah, thanks for being very optimists, Mac." Said Stella, represented her co-workers.

Mac just gave his famous smirk.

Flack thought about the invitation. He didn't know whether he wanted to come or not. Stella said that she didn't know much about Michael, and Minerva seldom talked about herself. But then, if this dinner will be some kind of farewell party for that Australian guy, he thought he should come.

Flack went back to his apartment that night at midnight. He watched his TV and thought about calling Minerva. He missed her. Badly. He was hesitant, wondered if he'll disturbed her by his call. But curiosity and the urge to hear her voice won. He dialed her number and listened to the monotone tone.

"Watson." Said a soft familiar voice.

"Hey." He managed to speak. Truth was, he didn't know what to say next.

"Hey, just got home?" she asked.

Glad that she didn't ask why he called, "Yeah… you can say so. Are you busy right now?"

"No… The ER is rather quiet tonight." She said. "Not complaining though."

Flack chuckled. "So, I'm not disturbing you?"

He almost could see her rolled her eyes. "Nope."

Then silent. No one said something.

"So…"

"So…"

They both spoke at the same time. Minerva giggled and asked Flack to finish his sentence.

"So," Flack started. "I heard you invited us for dinner tomorrow?"

"Yes." She continued, "Is that alright? I mean, can you all make it?"

He told her that the team was glad to receive her invitation and Mac was being scolded by the team for crashing the cheerful atmosphere. He rewarded by a soft laugh from her.

"He always does that, doesn't he?" Minerva asked after a while.

Flack thought for a moment, "Let's just say that he just always be rational."

"I envy him, sometimes." She confessed.

"Envy him? Why?"

"Well… he always manages to be the rational one, like you said before. Then he has a brilliant team like you all. He got all your respect."

"Respect? Brilliant team?" Flack repeated. "Don't think too high about us. We had dispute and quarrel sometimes."

"I know." She said. "Stella ever told me when she was disagree with him."

"Yeah, Danny and I used to have disagreement, quarrel, or something like that." He started to tell the story when Mac accused Gavin, Flack's ex-partner. Then he told her the story about Truby and what the consequences.

Minerva just listened and gave short comment to let him knew she listened to him. "The worst thing is, he always be the right one, right?"

Flack thought for a while. "After you said that, yeah… that's suck sometimes." He said.

"He deserved his position." She said thoughtfully. "Now I envy him more. Even after having dispute and disagreement, you all still respect him."

Flack answered with a simple 'yes'. "Why we talked about Mac? Why don't we talk about you?" he said.

Minerva chuckled. "I have nothing to be told. I have ordinary boring life. You don't want to listen."

'You bet' Flack thought. "Try me." He said.

"Well… my name is Minerva Watson. I came from Australia. I work as a nurse in emergency ward. I live alone. Anything else?" she teased.

'You don't make this easy, huh?' Flack mentally spoke. "What about your personal life? What you like to do in your spare time, how many dates you have in a week, anything like that."

"Detective, if I don't know you better, I will think that you're invading my privacy." She teased him again before continued, "I like music. I love staying at my apartment just read a good old book while curling on my coach. I date sometimes, nothing serious. Sometimes, when I'm on call duty, it's hard to arrange a date and not delay then ended up with canceling it."

Flack listened to every word she said. "Who is Michael?' the question was spurted out accidentally.

"I thought you wanna know about me." She said, tried to sound hurt. "I don't know if you have any interest in Michael."

"Haha…" Flack smiled dryly. "Try to ignore my question?"

She sighed, defeated. "Well… Michael is…" then he heard ambulance's siren from her side. He knew instantly that he won't get her answer.

"Flack… I'm so sorry. I gotta go. I'll answer that later, ok? Bye…"

Flack didn't have chance to reply her. She hung up. Flack stared at his phone. Felt frustrated and defeated by the situation, he chose to go to bed.

***

At lunch time the next day, Flack tried his luck to call her again. She answered in the fifth rang when Flack almost hung up.

"Yeah?"

Flack froze. He knew it's Minerva, but her voice was husky. 'She sounds sexy, no… not sexy, sleepy' he noted to himself.

"Hey." He greeted.

"mmmh?" she mumbled, still in her husky soft tone.

"I just want to…"

"Hello?" a man voice interrupted Flack.

"Yes?" Flack straightened his back. Michael, he thought.

"It's Michael."

"I know." He said in a flat tone.

"Oh, Ok." He sounded confused. "Minerva is still sleeping. She's very tired now, so maybe she won't remember anything you tell her now." He paused. "If you want to say something important, you can say that to me now, I'll let her know later."

'Yeah, I wanna tell her that I love her. Can you tell her that right after she wakes up' Flack thought, frustrated. 'and what the hell are you doing in her bedroom?' he was furious.

"No. It's nothing. I just wanna ask about the dinner plan tonight and whether she needs us to bring something." He made that up.

"Oh… well, I'll tell her that later, then." Michael replied. "Oh, and thanks for receiving our invitation."

'Yeah, our invitation' Flack didn't believe himself if he can restrain himself from murdering this guy right now so he mumbled something about 'his pleasure and need to do something else' then hung up before the other guy could manage a reply.

***

The team was glad that by the end of their shift, they've already done with their work. In fact, they solved another crime that day, which made the atmosphere more cheerful. Lindsay, Danny and Lucy will arrived a little bit late, while Hawkes, Sid, and Adam will go along with Flack. Stella and Mac went together.

Minerva was busy. She tried to arrange the table and save the food from Michael. He kept coming to the kitchen, said that he might help, while in fact he picked some food, which rewarded him by being kicked from the kitchen.

When the door bell rang, Minerva asked Michael to open it. Michael dragged his feet to greet the CSIs. He smiled warmly and let everyone came in. He took longer time to shake Flack's hand. He realized since their first meeting, that Flack was cold toward him. Michael tried to figure out why, and he thought the strong reason was related with Minerva, which made him wanted to test this guy.

"Hey…" Minerva went out from the kitchen, still smell sweet from the chocolate mouse she made, and hugged Stella. She hugged Mac too, but just gave firm handshake to Adam, Sid, Hawkes and Flack.

"Where's the Messers?"

"Lindsay said they gonna pick Lucy first from Danny's parents's house. So they might be a little late." Stella said.

"Oh, that's ok." She smiled comfortingly. "I'm glad that they can take Lucy here. She's adorable, you might like her, Michael."

"Yeah, you bet. How old is she?" Michael asked while they walked to living room.

"Almost 10 months." Answered Mac.

"10 months? Can she walk?" Stella shook her head and said that she can stand, but only managed to walk only a step before fell down to the floor.

"When Minnie was 10 months old, she was able to walk." He said to them. "And she tried to snatch my candy. She was mean even when she was a baby."

Minerva stepped on his foot and hissed, "Don't you dare tell the other stories." And made the team chuckled and laughed. Michael looked satisfy.

"No, tell us the other stories." Said Stella. Minerva shot her a pleading look.

"I can't say no to a charming lady." Michael flirted, he smiled warmly and stared at Stella.

"You will want to close your eyes, Stell. His charm is in his eyes." Snapped Minerva.

"Really? Why doesn't it work on you?" Michael teased her.

"I've overcome that since high school."

"Yeah, you have that anti-pheromone shield thing." Michael explained, "So, don't try to flirt with her, she won't be affected." He gave the guys serious look. "She is an ice queen." And glared at Minerva.

Minerva suppressed the urge to stick out her tongue. Michael always able to make her act like a child.

"Oh, shut up or you won't get that chocolate mouse." She threatened.

"Oh, I will get that. You're too kind to let me starve for that." He replied.

Minerva walked toward the door when the Messers came. "You know me too well" she sighed and let the Messers came in.

She was walking toward the kitchen when Michael replied lightly, "That's why I love you, you know that, right?"

Minerva turned back. Flack was stiffened, Stella and Lindsay glanced at Flack, while the others, who had small chatted on the couch turned silent.

Minerva rolled her eyes, "Yeah, I know. You told me that thousands times already." She then disappeared to the kitchen.

Lindsay nudged Stella and both of them looked at Flack. Stella motioned Lindsay to go to the kitchen.

***

That dinner went well, at least for the food. Sid kept complementing Minerva's cooking and made the girl blushed furiously. She tried to be modest by saying that she learned a lot from both her mother and Michael's mother (bad decision, Flack was almost choked by his food at that time). Michael was a nice guy. He asked about the CSI works and then shared his experiences in tactical response unit.

Flack was pissed and Stella and Lindsay didn't help much by kept glancing at him and Michael and sometimes giggled or chuckled.

"I'm glad to know that all of you are Minerva's friend. She's precious one for me." Said Michael while they had their desert.

"She's our precious friend too." Said Mac.

Minerva smiled sincerely and mouthed a 'thank you' to Mac.

"She's been through a lot in the last 2 years." Said Michael.

Minerva held her breathe. Wondered if Michael would told her friends about the tragedy. Michael glanced at her and gave a comforting smile.

"She said that she wants to have a new life in New York, and she made it." Michael said. "She lost and left a lot of things in Australia." He paused. "But she got a lot of wonderful things here."

The team listened. "I'm worried for her. I always consider her as my little sister."

Flack eyes twinkled, and his face soften. This made Stella and Lindsay glanced at each other and nodded in approval.

"You are too protective. What will your girlfriend think if she sees you like this?" teased Minerva.

"Stella loves me for everything I am." Said Michael amusingly.

Mac looked at Stella. Stella shook her head furiously. The whole team glanced at her too. Minerva chuckled and gestured Michael to clear this misunderstanding.

"Stella is my partner." He said, "Not this Stella, even though I must admit that I found you very attractive too."

"Don't flirt with me, Mike." Said Stella amused.

Michael laughed. "She likes when I'm flirting with her."

"Poor her" Minerva whispered. "She doesn't know what she gets into."

The whole table chuckled and they made a toast for Michael. Flack the one who suggested that.

***

"Why you didn't say that earlier?" Flack shook Michael's hands when he escorted them.

"And ruined a chance to notice that you are interested in her? No way" answered Michael. "Be honest, did you hate me back then?"

"I was going to kill you if you don't stop glancing at her" Flack confessed.

Michael chuckled. He handed Flack a wrapped thing. "You're a good guy. I'm sure you will protect her."

"What's this?" he was going to unwrapped that, when Michael told him not to.

"You only can open this when Minnie in an urgent life-threatening situation."

"I'm sure you'll know when." He added when Flack was about to ask.

"And lastly, as a brother I need to warn you, hurt her and you can be sure that will be the last thing you can do on earth."

Flack nodded. He believed Michael was able to do that. "You need to find another reason to hurt me, cause that one, will never happened."

Michael smirked. "But the important thing is, make a move, detective." He squeezed Flack's shoulder to encourage him. "Minnie can be very sensitive when it comes to other, but she is totally blunt when it comes to herself."

Flack smirked. 'If only that easy' he thought.

***

Notes: soooooo… that's it. I'm suck in romantic thing. But the point is… this chapter is finished. Hahaha…. Read and review please… I do appreciate that.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's note:

Disclaimer: None of the original CSI stories and characters are mine…

Chapter 5

Revelation

JFK…

"I can sense that she's here. After more than two years… we can hunt her now."

"No, don't hurt her directly. Let's bring her out from her hideout. We should make her 'cooperative' with us."

"Yeah, she won't stand to see her friends hurt."

"and that, my friend, is our deadly weapon."

"Who gave us the information?"

"A friend. He held grudge to her. He said she ruined his plan. Her, and Her CSI friend. I promise him we will help him bring down the CSIs."

***

Minerva froze when she received that card this morning. She was in her night shift and received that card from a cleaning service staff who told her that someone asked him to deliver that.

She opened the card and saw:

"_Dear Miss Watson,_

_It's been a long time since we encountered each other. We are very glad to find you again. To commemorate this, we will give you 'present'. We are very aware that you are a high dedicative worker. So do your friends. Allow me to remind you that sometimes, sometimes, accident may occur in the middle of your work._

_Be careful" _

She gasped. 'They found me.' She thought. She didn't know which friends they addressed. But she knew, something bad will happen. She rushed toward the break room, made a letter and printed that instantly.

She couldn't concentrate on her last 2 hours shift. But she managed to stay calm. She came to the head of emergency department's office and ask for his time. She handed him her resign letter.

Doctor Tate watched the young nurse sat in front of him. "Why so suddenly?"

"I have…" she trailed off. "I have personal business that I need to take care of."

"Is this personal business very important that you leave your job?" he asked again.

She nodded. Doctor Tate sighed.

"Minerva, I knew you for about two years. And I think you're not acting yourself today. Do you want to share?" he asked.

Minerva looked at the old wise doctor. Usually she could tell him her problem. But not this time. "I'm sorry. But I really need to solve this thing."

He sighed again. "Here's what I will do. I will give you two weeks of leave. You can take care of your personal thing during that. But after two weeks, I want you here, ready and fresh, and I want your true reason too." He added. "No argument" he finished and smiled warmly at Minerva.

Minerva knew she couldn't do anything else. She smiled and thanked him, mentally crossed her fingers when she made that promise. She hated when she made a promise that she knew she couldn't keep.

***

Danny was about to drive to the new crime scene that morning. He fastened his seatbelt and turned on the radio when suddenly the doors were locked. He just had few second to realize that the air conditioning was producing white smoke. He started difficult to breath. He tried to open the door and the window, no such luck. He reached his gun and hit the window with the holder. He tried to look around and knew that he was alone in the garage and no one's or no car's around. He shot his gun, and broke the glass. He managed to get out from the windscreen and hit the emergency button.

***

"You okay?" Lindsay rushed. She was called right after Danny got his first aid.

"Yeah… just surprised " he said.

"He didn't inhale too much carbon monoxide, so he'll be alright, Linds" said Hawkes.

"Who the hell did this thing?" Flack was pissed.

"The most important question is: how they can do that." Said Mac.

Mac then asked Hawkes and Stella to examine the car and find out the mechanism of the trap. He wanted to know whether they chose the victim randomly, or they targeted Danny. Flack and him will go investigate who had access to the garage and the car since last night. According to Adam, who used the car the day before, there's nothing wrong with the car.

Danny repeated what happened in the car to help Hawkes and Stella. Lindsay was worried. Even though Hawkes already told her that Danny was only in the car for less than one minute. She's glad that Danny made a quick movement.

"Don't make that face, Montana." He said. "I've been through the worse."

Lindsay sighed. After all, he's right, but she'd keep an eye on him. In case something's gone wrong.

***

"Bonasera."

"Hey Stell, how are you?"

"Great, except being busy lately."

"Oh, did I disturb you or something?"

"No… it's ok. I just finished check the car."

"The car? What happened to your car?"

"Not my car. Department's car. It went mad this morning, almost killed Danny."

Minerva went silent. "What happened, exactly?"

"Danny got into the car then the car was locked and there's carbon monoxide emitted from the air conditioning system. We'll try to figure out who and how they can do that."

"Oh" she paused. "Is Danny alright?" she sounded worried.

Stella smiled to herself. Minerva always worried others. "He's fine. He shot the windscreen and managed to get out from the car before he inhaled too much carbon monoxide. Hawkes said he'll be fine, and now he's already process the other crime scene with Lindsay."

Minerva lost of words. "Tell him," she was hesitant, "Tell him and Lindsay, I'm sorry to hear that, and I hope that he'll be alright."

"Ok, I'll tell them."

"Oh, and Stella,"

"Yeah?"

"Be careful, ok?"

"Always. You too."

Minerva put down her phone. So the CSIs were the target, she thought. She understood why they chose the CSIs, to prove that they were able to hurt the toughest one.

'What should I do?' she thought hard. She knew that they just wanted to scare her. She held the golden bridle in her hand. She knew exactly what they want. She'd willing to sacrifice herself, but that won't change anything. That will just make their way easier, and that was the last thing she wanted.

She looked at the bridle and caressed it. She never tried to understand about biochemist and DNA. She needed that now. She did some research, but still she didn't understand certain things. She needed to ask the expert.

Suddenly she remembered Stella story about Adam who helped her in PCR test. She knew she might endanger him if she asked him, but they'd targeted the CSIs, whether she contacted them or not. It's worth a try, though.

***

The next day, Minerva called Stella whether she could drop by and had lunch with her. Stella told her that she'll be busy, but Minerva could wait her in her office. Minerva agreed, after all, that's her real intention. Kept Stella busy, then sneaked to have a chat with Adam. Minerva just wished that Adam won't be suspicious.

She was greeted by few people she knew. Looked like the team still investigated Danny's accident. She really felt sorry for Danny. That's her fault. She won't forgive herself if she made Lucy lost her dad.

"Stell, is it ok if I wait in break room?" she asked as Stella was going to ballistic lab.

"Yeah, sure. Take your time."

So, Minerva walked to the break room, silently hoped that Adam will come to break room. She waited for an hour or so. She almost thought that Adam won't come, but then she saw him.

"Hey Adam." She greeted him warmly.

"Oh hey, what're you doing?" he asked back, surprised to see her there.

"I waited for Stella, we will have lunch together. You busy?" she asked.

"Not really, until the others bring back the evidence they found I don't have much to do." He said while taking a bottle of mineral water.

"Oh yeah, you're the DNA expert, yes?" she smiled. "Stella told me about the time you helped her with PCR test."

Adam blushed a little. He stuttered, "Well… yeah… I… I… did help a little, but not expert."

Minerva chuckled. "You're just being modest. DNA is a very confusing thing. I still couldn't figure out why we can modify it or how it can be altered."

"Oh, actually, DNA is an interesting subject. It holds human history. It's unique. Each individual has different strands of DNA, even twin."

"Well… my parents were scientists. They mastered the biochemist thing, but I never get interested in that. And you know, by having two type of DNA I should have understood that better. You said that it's rare to be like…" she tried to find the right words, "like me." She finished.

Adam took a seat beside her. His face was lit and he looked excited. It's been a long time since anyone showed an interest in his expertise. And without even realizing it, Adam started to tell Minerva the basic of DNA.

She asked him some smart question about why DNA can sometimes be a cure for certain disease, how people can alter DNA, what is modification of DNA.

"I ever heard about the experiment of combining two types of DNA to find some kind of drugs or antidote, I don't remember exactly who was the brilliant scientist. I remember that with two different strand of DNA, one can create and antidote of a certain poison, however, it's still a question about how to combine those DNA and get the antidote. I think it's possible, as long as they found the right combination." Adam said. Minerva gripped the table hard, until her knuckles went white. She did that unconsciously.

"Oh really? Why you think so? It's that danger?" she asked innocently.

"No if we used that in wise way. But it may endanger people who have those DNA, even if they can clone the DNA, still the effect is unknown. Not to mention if they used the poison to blackmail people." He drank his water before continued, "to be honest, I never read about that experiment again. Maybe they stopped it or they failed."

Minerva listened to him constantly.

"Well… after all science can be both for better or worse. They can be dangerous or useful" said Adam again. "To be honest, I think it's better if they never figure out that combination."

"Why?"

"The price will be too high."

***

Flack saw Minerva was flirting with Adam. No, he thought, Minerva just listened to every word the scientist said. She gave him full attention, and that encourage him to tell him more. Flack couldn't listen what they were talking from outside the room. He entered the room, Minerva still didn't notice him. She was absorbed to Adam's story.

He realized that Adam was telling her about his expertise, the DNA. No wondered he looked enchanted. She listened intensely like nobody else ever did. Flack cleared his throat to let them knew he was there.

Minerva looked back and smile, "Hey" she greeted him.

Adam, however, felt the Flack's eyes on him and excused himself.

"Adam," Minerva called before he reached the door. "Thanks for the information. It's wonderful how you can explain those complicated things and simplify that. I read a lot about that before, but still couldn't get the clue. But now, after you explained that to me, it's almost as clear as crystal." She smiled. "Thank you."

Adam froze. Flack glanced at him, acted like he didn't care. Adam opened his mouth, tried to say something, Minerva tilted her head, encouraged him to say whatever he wanted to say.

"Thank you."

Minerva giggled. "Believe me, Adam, the pleasure is mine."

Adam left. His ears were red.

Flack stared at Minerva.

"What?" she asked.

"Poor guy," he said. "You flattered him."

"I was just telling him the truth." She shrugged her shoulders.

Flack sighed. "So, what are you doing here?"

"I'm waiting for Stella. We will have lunch together." She answered.

Flack looked at his watch. It's already lunch time. "She's still in crime scene. Wanna have lunch with me?" he asked.

"Is that a date?" she teased.

"If you consider to." Replied Flack.

She looked hesitant. "Ok" she said. "But I pay my own lunch" she said as soon as she stood up.

Flack smiled, "I never let a lady pay for herself when she's out with me."

"Oh, then I rather wait for Stella." She was stubborn.

Flack rolled his eyes. "Ok, ok, I can make an exception for you."

Minerva smiled happily.

"Just so you know that you might ruin my reputation," said Flack tried to sound sad.

"By going on lunch with you?"

"By paying your own meal."

She tsk-ed him. And looked as if she didn't care. "I think my theory is better."

"Which theory?"

"That I'll ruin your reputation by accompanying you to lunch." She left, without giving chance to Flack to reply her.

***

"_Dear Miss Watson,_

_We were sorry that the'presents' we promised before was a failure, but we are sure that you already got the message. We heard that there are a lot of accident could happen in New York, even in front of NYPD building. We do hope that the doctor can help the others, but we wonder, who will help the doctor when he is the one who get hurt._

_Send our regards to the former ME"_

She received another card again. 'They know where I live' she thought.

They challenged her. They knew that she won't tell them where she hid the bridle and they didn't want to take risk by breaking into her apartment and searched for the bridle. After all, they wanted her to be cooperative.

She knew what to do. Later that day she bought several new keys and padlocks. She locked all her windows and doors. She thought bitterly, they might be smart, but sometimes they thought in a very complicated way that they ignored the simplest method. She took her berretta and changed to jeans and t shirt. She took out her coat, wore her sneakers. She opened her locked drawer, stood before her mirror and covered her red hair with long black wig.

'It's time to test whether I'm still able to shoot or not.' She thought bitterly.

***

Hawkes was about to enter the NYPD building when he heard loud shots and felt a bullet nearly shot his left shoulder. He pulled his gun and ducked instantly. Several officers went out to find the shooter. People were screaming. Hawkes rushed toward the possible position of the shooter. He found a man laid chest flat on the ground, his gun was about 5 meters away. He was bleeding from his right shoulder. Someone shot him. If he was the one who tried to shot Hawkes, who made the two shot who shot this guy.

Hawkes cuffed the guy and dragged him away. He bagged the laying gun.

***

It's not the first time Mac had his team being targeted. He had Danny and Stella to take the bullets from Hawkes' incident. Hawkes was right, the laying man was the one who tried to shoot him. The bullet matched the gun, he was positive for GSR and the only prints from the gun was belong to him.

But they still have mysterious shooter. The one who saved Hawkes. Two bullets were shot. One in the guy's shoulder, another was found stuck in the wall. Both were fired from Beretta. Some people witnessed a raven lady who sat in nearly café made that shot. A woman, with Beretta.

A silly suggestion crossed Stella's mind, but she brushed that over. 'It can't be' she thought.

They didn't get a hit on IBIS about the Berretta. The laying guy, was taken into custody. He refused to utter a single word. Even his identity. They didn't know about the shooter yet. His gun, a .9 mm was unregistered. His prints was nowhere in the CODIS. They got nothing from this guy.

"Mac," said Lindsay.

Mac looked up at her and gestured her to come in. Stella looked at her.

"I questioned the café's waiter. He said that he didn't remember much about the lady. She had purple eyes, it could be contact lenses. Her hair was black, it could be wig. Her figure was medium, rather petite."

"She ordered a glass of lemon tea, but we didn't find any prints, she might wear gloves or didn't touch the glass at all, but…"

Mac raised his eyebrow. He knew Lindsay was about to give him an important information.

"But we were able to trace DNA from the straw" she finished.

"You got a name?" asked Stella.

Lindsay sighed before spoke, "Minerva Watson"

Stella stood up instantly. "It can't be her." She said.

"It just proved that she was in the café, there's no proof that she was the shooter." Stella snapped.

"Stella," interrupted Mac.

Stella kept going on, "She would have told me and check for Hawkes, rather than just runaway from the scene, she…"

"Stella!" snapped Mac. "If it is true, we need her as a witness."

Stella froze. She glared angrily. "I'll pick her up."

"No," said Mac. "Lindsay, tell Flack and Danny to pick her up."

Lindsay nodded and walked out from the office.

Stella dropped herself in the couch. She lowered her head and hid it on her palms. Mac sat next to her and caressed her back. She snuggled closer to Mac.

"It can't be her." she said weakly.

"Who are you trying to convince, Stell?" asked Mac.

Stella glared at him. "You still need to ask that?"

"Have faith in her." Mac said. "She must be had her own reason."

"I do trust her with my life. I know her well, that is why I'm telling you that the reason will be more complicated than we've expected to be." She continued, "I have bad feeling about this."

***

Flack rang the door bell. Minerva asked 'who', then walked to the door. Danny and Flack heard several keys unlocked before Minerva opened the door for them. She greeted them cheerfully and let them came in. She locked the door immediately.

Danny noticed that there were 5 different keys and padlocks on her front door. Something that weren't there on their last visit.

"What makes me get this wonderful visit from two New York Detectives?" she said while offered them drinks.

"There was a shooting near NYPD building this afternoon." Said Danny, watched Minerva closely.

She frowned, "Anyone hurt?" she paused then her eyes widened, "Stella?" she gasped.

Flack was felt guilty for making her worry. "No. She's ok. No one's hurt. Hawkes was the one who almost get shot."

"But someone saved him." Said Danny, still watched intensely to the woman in front of them.

She glanced at both of them, there's questioning look on her face. "One of you saved him? That's good thing."

"Not us. A woman."

"Lindsay?" she asked again.

"Not one of us." Danny made his statement clear. He wondered, if Minerva was the savior, she did great in acting out.

Minerva let a small 'oh' escaped.

"Somehow I feel that you're here not only to tell me that there was a shooting. Care to tell me what is the real intention of both of you are here?" she braced herself.

"We found your DNA in crime scene." Said Danny.

Minerva looked confused. "On a straw." Said Flack.

Minerva let out a sigh. "Ok, maybe I was there. I'm sorry, but I have no clue about what happened before." She said again.

"Minerva," Danny held her shoulder. "We need you to come with us, and we need your Berretta to rule you out from our possible suspect."

"It's a procedure, I understand." She said when she looked at the gloomy faces.

'There's no use of pretending anymore' she thought. 'I need to find out a good reason for being there, and for lying to them'

Minerva walked to her bedroom and put her Beretta to her purse. They went out. She locked her door and shook the handle furiously to make sure that her door was perfectly locked. Danny raised his eyebrow.

'She is scare of something. But what?' Danny mentally told himself.

They were about to reach the car when there were shootings toward them. Flack and Danny both dragged Minerva and hid behind the car. The shootings were over. To both the men's surprised, Minerva clutching her gun tightly, as if she's ready to shoot back. However, her face was pale and her knuckles turned white. She was frightened to death.

"Mac, we got situation."

Flack told Mac what happened. Mac told him to bring Minerva immediately, he said that Hawkes and him will process the scene.

Danny hugged Minerva's shoulder and soothed her. Flack motioned both of them to get into the car. They drove in silent.

***

Minerva sat nervously in the interrogation room. Mac wanted to ask her personally. Stella, Danny, Flack, Lindsay, and even Adam watched her from the other room.

"Mac forbids me to enter the room, right?" said Stella to Flack.

He nodded "He wanted to ask her himself, and before that, no one enter the room."

Flack and Danny already told them about the shooting in front of Minerva house. Right now, Hawkes and Mac were in ballistic lab, Mac was on his way to question Minerva while Hawkes will evaluate the bullets.

They all focused their attention when Mac entered the room. He smiled at Minerva before took a seat in front of her.

"Minerva, I'm afraid I need to ask you some questions." They heard him. Minerva nodded.

"And I want you to tell us the truth." Mac added. "I believe you will"

They saw Minerva smiled weakly.

"We examine your gun, and it was a match with the bullet from the shooting near NYPD building." Mac said, showing her the picture of the bullets.

Minerva stared at the picture. She then watched Mac closely. "Just say it." She said softly to Mac.

"Did you shoot these bullets?" Mac finally asked.

Minerva took a deep breathe before answered, "Yes." Then, "I'm sorry."

The team glanced at each other. Surprised by her last words.

"Why you're sorry?" asked Mac. "You saved Hawkes."

She lowered her head and muttered. "I won't need to save him if he didn't know me."

Mac sighed. "It was not us, it was you." He said softly. "Somehow I had a feeling about this."

Minerva smiled sadly at him, "I know I couldn't lie to you all. You're the best in New York." She said in irony. "And that's why they after you all."

"Who are they?" asked Mac.

Minerva looked at him. A pain in her eyes was clearly seen by everyone. "Can I meet with Stella first, I know she is behind that glass, but I think I need to tell her in person."

Mac turned his back and nodded to Stella. Flack was behind her. "I need to be there too" he said to Stella. Stella didn't argue with him.

Stella entered the room and sat next to Minerva. Flack stood behind her. Minerva gave him a thank you look.

"Stella, I'm going to tell you all my past. You've been asking about it since we knew each other. I figure that this time I can't avoid that subject again."

She continued, "I guess it started about 20 years ago. Both my parents were scientists, in Biochemist. They both worked on a project with other scientists." She paused. "They tried to find out the antidote for all kind of poison."

Adam's gasped. Lindsay gave him a question look, but then Hawkes came in before Adam had chance to explain.

"I was 4 years old that time." She said. "My parents and their team worked hard on that project. When I was 10, they made a great improvement. I didn't knew what happened before, but ever since that, my Dad took me to shooting range and taught me to shoot. I got my own gun when I was 12."

"Still, I was clueless." She paused. "Everything's remained calm until I was 22. My parents never told me about their project. I never asked why." Her voice was being shaky.

"On the Halloween night, about three years ago, my parents were murdered." She tried to hold back her tears. Stella squeezed her hand, encouraged her to continue her story.

"I was… upstairs, talking to Mickey. He was still in academy, and we both had long chat." Her tears began to form. "Then, I heard my mum called me."

"She wanted me… she wanted me to open the door." She smiled sadly, "We had this tradition, of giving candy to the children in our neighborhood, and each year lots of the children came and knocked at our door. My dad and I usually dashed to the door to be the first one who gave the candy." She smiled at her memory.

"But at that time, I told her that I was talking to Mickey and I said 'Let dad opens the door, he doesn't need to compete with me this year'." She let out a sarcastic laugh, the first one they heard.

"As soon as my dad opened the door, I heard gun shots. A lot of gun shots." She stiffened. "I screamed. I knew both my parents were right in front of our door. I tried to… I tried to run downstairs, but then Michael told me to hide."

"I couldn't think of anything." She was crying. She tried to catch her breath and told the story between her cry. "I was helpless… useless… I didn't even try to help my parents." Her voice was bitter.

Lindsay didn't realize that she was crying, until Danny hugged her and wiped her tears. He knew exactly that Lindsay remembered the night her friends were murdered.

"Don't blame yourself." Said Mac soft.

Minerva nodded several times. "They told me that too, you know. Michael's family." She took a deep breathe, three times. "Well, I ran to my father's study room. Locked the door, and entered the panic room behind the book shelf."

"I never understood why they built that panic room before, but at that time, I knew that they already knew about all of this would happen." She clutched her hands tightly.

For a moment, she just cried there. No other sound was heard besides her stiffs and cried. She coughed a few times. Stella offered her a glass of water, but she didn't even notice that. She seemed not notice everyone in that room. She looked at blank spot on the table. She was shaking. She didn't respond to everything Stella, Mac, or Flack said.

Lindsay knew that feeling. She felt that too when she should gave testimony in court in Montana. She glanced at Danny and thought how grateful she was when he showed up. She squeezed Danny's hand. He stared at her, kissed her temple, knew that Lindsay was remembering her own testimony.

Minerva calmed her breathe. She wiped her tears. She looked Mac in the eye, then she continued. "I heard police were coming, Michael said that he asked his father to call 911. He helped me a lot, even he wasn't there with me."

Flack reacted to her words, even though he knew that Minerva considered Michael as her brother, he couldn't help himself for being jealous.

"The police then secure my house. I went out from the panic room, told them the story, then Mrs. Sandrelli took me with her. I didn't know what happened back then. I couldn't think of why my parents were murdered. I didn't go back to my house until my parents' funeral."

"That day, on my parents' funeral day, I finally know why that…" she paused. "that tragedy happened."

"Our lawyer announced my parents' will. He handed me a key. I know what key, it's a key of my father's suitcase."

"I used that key and found a disc. I played that disc. And I realized that the murderer were their partners. I contacted the police, but it was a mistake."

"There were not enough proof to put them in the shooting, and they knew instantly that I am a threat."

She handed Mac a disc from her purse. She nodded in approval when Mac gave her a questioning look. He held that disc.

"I ran away. Tried to keep myself alive. And…" she started to breathless again, "And I killed my bestfriend for that."

"What do you mean 'killed your bestfriend?'" asked Stella softly.

"She was killed when she protected me. She dressed like me to let me ran, she was shot and drown." She said angrily, "I don't even know if they've found her body or not."

"Six months later, I was in New York. Leaving all my past."

"You didn't kill her." Said Flack. He was hurt seeing her like this.

"I'm as good as killed her." She said coldly.

"I was so stupid. I thought they won't find me here. The last two years was my best years. I finally had normal life, got a job, had bestfriends," Stella noticed she used past expression.

"You still have us here," she said.

Minerva shook her head. "I could make you all killed. Danny, Hawkes, and I don't know who else will be in danger." She broke into tears again.

She took two cards from her purse. "They want me."

"Don't even think about that." Flack shook her. "Don't even think to sacrifice yourself" he said angrily.

Minerva eyes' bored into him. Those grey-green eyes looked him closely. She smiled, a fake smile she always used in hospital when she needed to hide her feeling, she knew she can fool everyone by her fake smile. "I never think about that. I knew that it will be useless. I just give what they want."

Mac nodded. "You're smart, Minerva." He acknowledged her.

"We will protect you. You will stay here, and we will arrange several officers to look after you." He added.

Minerva nodded. She looked tired. Very tired.

Mac told Flack to take her to safe house. Flack nodded. He put his arm around her shoulder and walked with her.

"Meet me in AV lab" said Mac to his team. They will examine the disc.

***

The team remained silent while they were waiting Mac in the AV room. Mac still had to make several phone calls, while Flack was escorting Minerva to the safe house. Stella was the most depressed one, she was angry that Minerva kept that secret, but she also knew that it was not an easy thing to share. To be honest, Stella couldn't imagine how someone still can continue their life after such a tragedy.

Mac finally entered the AV room, saw the gloomy look and heavy atmosphere in the room. He raised his eyebrow to Sid's present.

"I invited myself." he said.

Mac didn't say anything again, Sid took that as a "yes". Mac motioned to Danny to play the disc. For several seconds, they saw nor heard nothing. Then, they saw a man with the same green eyes as one of Minerva's.

"Minerva," the man's voice was deep and concern. "We, your mother and I, are sorry to let you know by this way. We thought we can save you by stopping the experiment." he took a deep breathe. "Let me tell you from the start."

"You already knew that we worked in the company as scientists. At first, we were very impressed with the facility and our team. We couldn't think of any other job that was better than this one. We married, then when your mother was pregnant, we had to make a hard decision, we forced to fuse you and your twin due to medical reason. And when you were born, we were surprised that you were born as a chimera."

"Don't misunderstand it. We didn't regret it. We were glad we did that. We have a special daughter. Now, we don't find a reason to argue about whose eye color you will inherit. Cause you have both of our eyes." he chuckled.

Lindsay remembered the same words from Minerva when she first met her.

"We never knew that you are far more special than that. When you were 10 years old, do you remember, you were bitten by a snake? Your mom was furious and she told me that she had thought it was a bad idea to let you followed a camping night. But then, you didn't show any sign of poisonous. Instead, when we checked your blood, we found anti-venom in your blood. Your teachers told us that you haven't received any medical aid. They just thought that the snake was not poisonous, so that you were saved."

"But they were wrong. You were poisoned. But, the miracles in your body created the anti-venom. We were glad that you were saved, but then the team found out about that. They thought you were the answer of our project: to create antidote for all the poison. They told us we can save a lot of people from unknown poisons."

"It was a hard decision, as scientist, we knew that you can help us in our experiment. But as parents, we wouldn't let them do that to you for we both know that in order to create the antidote, you have to be injected by certain poison, and there's no guarantee that you can survive. So, we objected and we resigned from the project."

"We thought we stopped them, but they have the early formula already. The one we called the silver bridle. The formula was not complete, yet. And as soon as they know we have the half formula, they will go after us. They will take you from us. That is why, we tried to protect you. You always asked why you should take shooting lesson, or why there is a panic room in our house, or why your mother asked you not to go alone. We afraid they will find you."

"But we knew we failed when you watch this. We just want to make sure you know that we love you and we did all those things to save you. Keep yourself safe, and make sure you hold the golden bridle. You may not destroy it. It holds not only the complete formula, but more useful than that." Minerva's dad show a bridle which glimmered like gold.

Then, there's a woman with red hair and grey eyes, Minerva's mom, appeared near her husband.

"Stay safe, dearie. We love you so much. Keep alive."

Then the disc showed nothing.

***

Even when the disc had stopped, no one could utter a single word. Not even Mac. He stared at the black monitor. Lost in thought. They thought they had seen worse until today. Never they thought before that someone who as lively as Minerva had a past like this. Living her life like hell, running away from her past and came to New York. And when her life already felt better, they found her. They threatened her by trying to kill her friends. They couldn't kill her, for they still need her and her DNAs.

Someone cleared they throat. Everyone looked at Adam.

"She asked me a few questions about DNA." he said, "I … I never thought that her reason will be 'this'".

"She told me that her parents were scientists and died by an accident." said Lindsay, "But I never thought like this."

Stella was silent. Her shut eyes then suddenly snapped open. "Danny, play back the video."

Danny stared at her, didn't believe her reaction will be like that. Stella stared back, then nodded. Danny then played back the disc.

"Stop! Stop right there." said Stella when the visual showed Minerva's father held the bridle.

"I knew it!" she said. "I knew I ever seen that before."

"What do you mean?" asked Mac. "You've seen the bridle before, in Minerva's house?"

Stella didn't say anything but stormed to her office. Lindsay was about to follow her, but Danny held her wrist and shook his head. A few minutes later, Stella came back, holding her new purse in her hand.

"Minerva gave this to me about two days ago." she stated.

Mac looked at the purse intensely. "The strap."

Everyone now focused their attention to the strap now. It was a nice golden strap.

"The bridle" whispered Lindsay.

"She made this purse for me." Stella said. "I always thought that the strap was resemble something, but before now, I never thought that it was a bridle-like strap."

"If it is the bridle, they after, maybe we can find what the 'useful' thing that Minerva's dad said." stated Mac. "Stella, we need to process this purse."

Stella nodded and handed Mac the purse. Mac looked at the strap – bridle closely, he found an opening. Adam, I'm gonna need your help, find anything that might be related to Minerva's parents and their inventions, the company they've worked in and their partners, anything. Danny, called Flack and asked about Minerva. Hawkes, question the guy who tried to shoot you. Analyze his DNA, run it to CODIS, this time, try to find familial match. Run it to the prints we found from the car too, they might be related. Lindsay, called the Sandrellis, asked them about Minerva's parents' death."

Just then, Mac's phone rang. Flack.

"Mac, they got her." Flack sounded frustrated.

"Hold on. What do you mean?"

"I was going to take her to safe house, but then there's an accident, Minerva insisted to stop the car and tried to help the victim. As soon as she got off from the car, and walked to the victim, an ambulance arrived, and they've all gone. I called all the hospital to find her, but no hospital reported there's an accident. I'm sure they got her."

"Flack, listen! I need you to focus, try to question the witness and collect the information from them. Anything related to the accident, the car, the victim, the ambulance. Ask them if they saw Minerva and what happened to her. Keep me posted."

"We have to work fast." said Mac after he hung up his phone. He stared at Stella, "They got her."

Stella gasped. "How?" she asked disbelieving. Lindsay embraced her shoulder.

"Right now, we should focus on what we have rather than making assumption of things we don't know yet." said Mac. "Stella, do you think you can help Flack process the scene where Minerva's missing?"

Stella raised her head. "Are you sure?"

Mac raised his eyebrow. "You want me to switch you and Hawkes?"

"No!" said Stella quickly. "I can handle that." She got up and stormed from the lab.

"Do you think it's wise to let Stella go?" asked Sid.

"Stella and Flack have more reasons to save her, thus they will try their best. In a meantime, let's focus on the evidence." Mac finished.

***

A/N: I intended to finish in chapter 5, but it took too long, and I haven't finished the last part, yet... bear with me....

for mariomm (), thanks for your review, because of the lack review, I started to hesitate in finishing this story... thank you for reviewing... ^_^


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Here's chapter 6. Sorry for the late update.

Thanks for my reviewer:

mariomm: thank you so much for enjoying my story...

redbess: I will continue my story for those who wants it. That, is you I'm talking about. lol

Thanks for those of you who're willing to spend some time to write a review for my story.

Enjoy reading then...

Disclaimer: you know what I should say in this section, right? CSI: NY is belong to Anthony Zuiker…

Chapter 6

The lost light

Flack felt very frustrated.

'How come a lot of people watch the accident, yet no one remember the victim or the suspect, or anything related to the accident?' he thought bitterly.

Stella arrived about an hour later. She helped Flack by calling to all hospital whether they sent their ambulance to the accident scene. Flack kept trying to find anything which will lead them to Minerva.

After 2 hours making phone calls and questioning unreliable witnesses, both Flack and Stella were exhausted and frustrated to find they didn't get any further. Stella tried to call Mac, asking if they already found any lead. Mac didn't say much, he just asked them to keep focus on finding Minerva. He just said, Minerva's life was in danger. Something that they already knew.

Flack kept saying to himself that he had to save her. He didn't want to lose another woman who is precious to her, even when she didn't realize it yet. Suddenly, his eyes lit. He grabbed Stella and dragged her to her car.

"Go back to lab, I'll meet you there." he said in a rush.

"What?!" Stella asked in surprise. "We need to find Minerva."

"I know. And even if I'm not sure about this, I think I can find something." said Flack. Then, before Stella can protest, he continued. "Trust me and wait for me in the lab." he emphasized his words.

Stella just nodded and drove to crime lab, whilst Flack drove his car to his apartment. He kept thinking about what Michael had said to him before, and the package he gave (A/N: see chapter 3).

'He knew something like this will happen.' Flack said mentally.

As soon as he arrived to his apartment, Flack rushed to his bedroom and opened the drawer. He took the package. It was still warped like the first time he got that. Impatiently, Flack tore the warping paper and he looked at a GPS tracker. His heart beat fast. He found a letter dropped from the package. He chose to read the letter, knowing that he might find the answers of his questions.

"_Michael, take care of Minerva. I know you can do that for me. In case she's missing, use this GPS tracker. Her mother planted a GPS device in her premolar when she was 12. Use this tracker wisely._

_Tell her, we love her very much._

_I'm sorry for involving you in this situation._

_-Christopher-"_

Flack, didn't know why, knew for sure that the letter was from Minerva's father. He felt a tinge of jealousy because even Christopher trusted Michael to take care of Minerva. Suddenly, he snapped his fool thought and tried to turn on the tracker. Soon, a tiny red dot appeared before him. He smiled and rushed to meet Stella. At last… he can find her.

***

Meanwhile in the lab, Adam was in a deep concentration mode, so that he didn't notice that Mac entered his lab. Mac just watched the younger lab tech in silence. After a while, he cleared his throat, announced his presence.

Adam startled after hearing someone's clearing they throat. He looked up from the screen he'd been staring at for the last 2 hours.

"You find something?" they both knew that the statement was not a question but rather as a statement.

Adam nodded. "I'm not quite sure tough." he admitted. "For the first thirty minutes, I spent my time to search and ask for an access to the Watsons' journals. Since then, I tried to understand its content, and believe me, it's not something that you can understand in just two hours."

"I trust you." said Mac. "But I don't need to understand it. You are the one who should master it."

Adam was quite taken aback that he didn't know what to say. He was speechless. But Mac needed this information so badly that he asked the DNA expert about anything he had found.

"Apparently, they once worked for Med Expert, it's an international pharmacy lab. They worked on a project called 'Level X'. It was a project to invent antidotes which can counteract any deadly poisons."

Mac listened to Adam's explanation. He thanked him not to begin to talk out of topic like he often did.

"There were 5 scientists working on this project. We already knew that the two were Minerva's parents. Christopher and Joanna Watson. And if what Minerva told us is true, then maybe the person who are after her are the other three."

Mac nodded in agreement. "You got names?"

"Prof. Ronald Money, Dr. Yolanda Peter, and Prof. Jose David." answered Adam in triumph. "And, I recheck with the airport database about the arrival from Australia in the last one month, I found Prof. Ronald Money and Prof Jose David's name on the passenger list. They arrived in JFK last week."

"Good job, Adam." Mac said while handing him the strap, or bridle. "Take a look at this thing. I found something interesting but I'm not sure why. I think it's a programme or something like that. Try to figure out how this thing works."

Adam looked at the strap Mac given him. When Mac was about to exit the lab, Hawkes stormed in. "Mac, I got something."

Both men looked at him, let him know that he got their attention. "I didn't get anything useful from the silent man (the man who tried to shoot him before). He kept his mouth shut." he said. "Nothing in CODIS for his DNA, however, the prints from the car was a perfect match to the prints that Minerva lifted from the bomb in the concert hall accident."

Mac's scowl became deeper. 'How come Anthony Fergusso has something related with this case? Is it possible that the Danny's accident was unrelated.' he thought. 'No' he snapped his thought, remembered Minerva's cards. 'They could be worked together.'

***

Minerva tried to stay still. She didn't like this situation at all. She didn't recall what happened earlier. All she knew now was that she was in a trunk of a car, tied behind her back, and got her mouth covered in black tape. She tried to loosen the rope, but the trunk limited her movement. She bumped her head more than once while trying to get a better body position. She didn't know how long she's been in the trunk. All she knew was, they got her.

She closed her eyes, tried to listen anything from outside the trunk. Wished that she could hear a distinctive sound that will give hint about her whereabouts. 'Darn, I where are they going to take me?' was all she thought. She didn't need to know what will happen with her. She didn't worry they will try to kill her, because they needed her alive. 'But that doesn't mean they won't torture me.' she thought bitterly.

Part of her knew that her friends will try to save her, but the selfless part of her wished that they didn't encounter these guys. They will only endanger themselves. Minerva thought whether her decision to give the bridle to Stella was the right thing to do. She knew that as soon as Stella saw the video, she will notice the bridle. Minerva believed that the lab experts there had ability to encrypt the data from the bridle.

Minerva felt the car stopped. She did the last thing she knew: prayed for her life. She couldn't see what happened outside, so she counted on her hearing. She heard the car doors were opened. Few people stepped out. Five. She estimated by the sound of foot step while they stepped out the car. She knew exactly one of them. JD a.k. Jose David. She never like him ever since she met him for the first time.

He was a man with thin face, sleek dirty blonde hair with black emotionless eyes. Hmph, Minerva thought, even his face was already evil. But his heart was more evil than anything else. She knew that he was the one who responsible for the missing beggars back then in Melbourne. He used them to be his guinea pigs.

Minerva held her breath. Those people chatted outside. 'What are they talking about?' thought Minerva. She just heard few words like "new friends", "waiting", "new drugs", and definitely… "little Minnie". She shuddered when she heard them saying her name. She closed her eyes. Too deep breaths, three times. After she felt herself calm, she started to move her wrists together. Tried to remember the trick she ever learn from Mr. Sandrelli back when she was 15: how to lose a rope.

***

"What do you mean Fergusso is involved?" demand Stella.

"Exactly what I meant. Fergusso cooperates with Ronald Money and Jose David in this case. That's mean, by finding Fergusso, we can find Minerva."

"How can you be so sure?" asked Flack.

"Let's wait for Danny and Hawkes. I don't want to repeat my explanation."

"They better be hurry." Muttered Stella.

Fortunately, 10 minutes later the team was complete, well… except Flack.

"Ok, first thing first. I want to start with the Watsons' murder. Lindsay?" asked Mac.

Everyone turned their attention to Lindsay. Lindsay tried her best to summarize her conversation with Sandrellis one hour ago.

"Right." She took a deep breath. "On Halloween two years ago, the Sandrelli heard gun shots, then while they tried to figure it out, Michael called his father. He told them that the Watsons were being shot at and asked him to call the police. 10 minutes later, the police came. Mr. Peter, Michael's dad, followed them to the Watsons. They found Mr. Watson near the front door, bloody and lifeless. They also found Mrs. Watson in the hallway to the living room."

"At first, they didn't find Minerva until Mr. Sandrelli called out her name for the last 15 minutes near the study room. The police processed the scene, and Minerva was sent to hospital to be checked. She lived with the Sandrellis ever since."

"Minerva didn't tell them anything. In fact, for a week, she didn't speak at all. After a week, Michael came from academy, and it seemed that Minerva started to become herself again. However, she still didn't tell anyone about what happen during the attack. Either she didn't know what the reason behind the attack was or she didn't want to talk about it."

"Since we heard from her that she didn't know the reason behind the attack until she found the disc, we know what makes her chose to silent." Concluded Danny.

Lindsay nodded. "I couldn't find anything else. I even have impression that we know more than them about it."

Mac nodded at her words. "Did you ask about her friend?"

Lindsay gave a small nod before answering, "They don't know much. Except from what the newspaper reported. The girl's never been found. No one seemed to tie her to Minerva except that she was the last person who met her and the fact that she was her best friend."

"Danny? Hawkes?" Mac motioned to those two.

Well… face said that all. They looked… depressed.

"We found nothing Mac. No familial match. Nothing." said Hawkes.

"Well, except the fact that we've already known that Fergusso has something to do with this. His DNA in the car is the exact match with the DNA from the concert hall." said Danny, not looking better than his partner before.

Mac was silent for a moment before looked up at his teams. "I guess Adam is the one who made a lot of progress. So, Adam, explain please."

Adam, felt rather flattered, then explained to the team about the project that Minerva's parents might be involved. Their partner, and the arrival of 2 of them in JFK. He explained why they needed to capture Minerva alive and what might she faced if they didn't save her quickly.

As if that was the cue, Flack came and stormed into the room…

"We can find her." said Flack. "She has a GPS device in her tooth."

"What do you mean by she has a GPS device in her tooth?" asked Stella rapidly.

Flack shoved the letter to her. He also gave GPS tracker to Mac who already stood beside him.

"Read." he said sharply.

Stella looked at him, then the letter in confused. Sure, she knew that some people tended to be overprotective and gave their children GPS device. But usually, those devices were stuck in their watch, their mobiles, their cars, or any other thing, but surely not in their body. In their tooth. What kind of parents, and what kind of device can be last for, she counted, 12 years!

Flack watched impatiently as Stella read the letter. The red dot kept moving, but then it stopped.

'They reached their destination.' Mac thought. 'I can think of another strategy to ambush them.'

"I see… but how can a GPS device last for more than 10 years?" she uttered her doubt. (A/N: I don't know how many years does GPS device can be last for, it's just my imagination, ok?)

"I don't know, maybe because her parents were brilliant scientists who discovered that their daughter can create antibody or anything like that when she injected with certain poison?" he answered sarcastically. Stella had told him the story of they heard from the disc. There were times Flack felt jealous to his partners' ability in science, but not this time.

'Science can drive someone's nut.' he mentally told himself.

"Don't use that tone to me." Stella snapped. She's not in the mood of joking. Hell, her friend was missing, her friend whom she thought she knew who she was, but then she found out that she had a past that she couldn't imagine before.

"Stell…" Flack started to argue, but…

"Let's cut the argument, ok." Mac interrupted. "Right now, we should go save Minerva. I find the location. Her GPS device finally stopped. It's not anywhere near a traffic light, of that I'm sure, and the place was a warehouse near the port. Perfect spot to do crime." he continued.

"We have to go there immediately." said Flack to Mac.

Mac nodded, "But we should make a plan to ambush them first. They could use Minerva as a hostage."

***

"What do you want from me?" asked Minerva coldly.

"Ckckck… this little Watson sure doesn't like to waste her time." a man she used to call 'Uncle Ronnie' said.

"But she is so absurd to pretend that we don't know that she knows what we wanted from her." said Jose David, moving closer to her.

Minerva dragged herself away from him. She was sat on a hard-concrete floor. Her hands tied in front of her, her feet also wrapped in rope. She's almost able to loosen the rope before she was dragged to the warehouse and the two men she didn't recognize started to bind her again.

"Right… you actually know what we really want."

"You want the golden bridle, the half formula that's hidden in it." she said, surprised by her own calm-voice.

"Yes… and no…" said David. "We want the golden bridle, but we only need it because your mother inserted the secret data of our project that will bring not only us, but the company down. So that, the bridle have to be abolished."

Minerva looked at the man in horror. "What? Then, if you have already had a complete formula, why didn't you stop whatever you're doing?" her voice started to shake, "Why did you have to kill my parents?" she shrieked.

"Because… we still need you." said Money creepily. One of the man behind him gave him a small black box. He opened it and took a syringe from inside that.

"What are you going to do?" Minerva felt that panic was creeping throughout her body.

"Making you a perfect doll." was the last thing David said before Money injected the syringe to Minerva's vein.

Minerva felt the shot burned her skin. Then… she felt someone opened the ropes that bond her. She pushed herself backward and tried to stand. She did it. Nothing weird with her body. Whatever they'd injected her with, it seemed that it had no effect on her.

"Hey, what the hell happened here? Why did you let her free?" demanded Fergusso.

He didn't like the situation. At first, he thought by having those "help" he would bring the CSIs down, and got his revenge for his failed plan and his subordinates. This girl was the one that should be responsible for it. The two guys, the scientists, told him that they would make her suffer. One of three of the hitman those Australian scientist took with them was in NYPD right now, because of their stupidity. And Fergusso didn't like a plan that he didn't know about.

"Just wait and see…" snickered Money.

Minerva found an opening and started to run toward the door when a bullet made a slight contact with her right forearm. She felt the pain and cried out, but she kept moving on. Then, the second bullet slightly crashed her right thigh. One and another bullets kept coming and just made slight contact with her body parts: hands, ankles, legs, waist… until she couldn't stand it anymore. She threw herself to the nearest wall to support her up. She won't show any weakness.

Just when she felt her vision began to blurry, she heard a loud sound. Policy sirens. Then she heard familiar voice, one that she thought she wouldn't hear that anymore…

"NYPD, you have been surrounded. We guarded all the exit doors. Get out from the building or we will barge in!!!"

None of the five men reacted, except for one. Fergusso tried his best to sneak out to another part of the warehouse. Fifteen minutes later, after a tiny robot entered the warehouse, few people jumped from the roof, more people barged in from the front door. The four men never stood a chance against a 150 New York police officers.

"Drop your weapon. Put your hands behind your head! NOW!" barked Flack, while Stella frantically trying to locate Minerva.

She found her best friend near the wall in the other side of the warehouse, all bloody and dirty. Her breaths were irregular. She came near her and about to touch her, when Minerva jerked and shoved her hand.

"Leave me alone!!! What did you do? What was that drug?" Minerva's voice was pitch high.

"Minerva, It's me… Stella. What happened to you?" Stella was worried and panic upon seeing her best friend like that. Clearly, the blood was not the worst part.

As she saw Minerva's hands were trying to locate her whereabouts, Stella felt her blood rushed from her head.

"Can't… can't you…" she hesitated, didn't want her thought confirmed. She reached out her hand to touch Minerva's. "… Can you see me?" she almost whispered.

"Stella??? Is that really you? Why is everything so dark?" Minerva gripped Stella's hand.

Stella hugged her friend tightly. She didn't let go, even when she saw from the corner of her eyes that Mac moved toward her to know what was going on there. Stella didn't need to explain though.

"She was poisoned." said Ronald Money. "And we had the antidote…" he stated smugly.

Mac rushed toward the four grounded men. Stood beside Flack who's face was redden, suppressing his anger and his will to pull the trigger.

"What do you want?" asked Mac harshly.

"We want the golden bridle, and the guarantee that you and your friends won't go after us."

"Why should we believe you that she has been poisoned?" said Mac.

"Because she started losing her sight." said David coldly. "We developed a poison. A special one. One that could make her becomes our perfect doll."

"What do you mean?" asked Flack.

"The poison will alter her sense. She will lose her senses gradually. She won't be able to hear, to taste, to feel, to smell, just like now she isn't able to see…"

"and the only antidote is in our hand. If you want to save her, then you have to do what we demanded you to do."

"Show me." demanded Mac. "Show the antidote as the proof, the we'll consider your will."

Money smirked and put his hand on his inner pocket. He looked smug first, then he looked pale. He started to run his hands frantically on his body. Mac knew what this was meant.

"You don't have the antidote, do you?" he smirked.

"Bring them!" commanded Flack. He then rushed toward Stella who's still hugging Minerva.

"Minerva…" he called out her name.

The different eyes looked toward him, but they didn't see him. It hurt him so bad when Minerva, slowly moved her hands, trying to touch him. Flack kneeled down, taking her right hand and kissed her palm.

"Flack…?" she finally said. A tear rolled down her eyes. The last thing she heard was a panic Stella called her name, while Mac saying something about "ambulance" and "hospital".

***

A/N: I originally intended to finish this story on chapter 5, but then I dislike to finish them abruptly without giving them proper plot to flow. So… bear with me a little while… Thanks for reading and reviewing


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